Twitch Couldn't Handle Fortnite's Galactus Event
Fortnite's long-awaited Galactus finale to Chapter 2 – Season 4 finally arrived on Tuesday afternoon, and it was so popular that Twitch actually malfunctioned at the event's conclusion, presumably due to the high volume of viewers watching Fortnite streams across several channels. Reports flooded in from Twitch users regarding a handful of issues that made the streaming site basically unusable.
As Kotaku reported, Twitch Support acknowledged the errors on Twitter, noting that the support team was "investigating an issue causing multiple services issues." The issues revolved around "logging in, loading the site, notifications and alerts, stream details missing, [and] site elements missing." Twitch did not confirm that the issues were a direct result of Fortnite's Galactus event, but users speculated that this was the case given the timing and the fact that millions of users were watching.
This was also not the first instance of malfunctioning that Twitch experienced in conjunction with a major Fortnite event. Back in June, just before the Aquaman event flooded the map in Fortnite, Twitch reported site loading issues, according to Heavy. Some viewers were unable to watch the stream live. Meanwhile, on the flip side, streamers reported their streams going down and they could not go live again.
Thankfully, this time, viewers were able to witness Galactus, Destroyer of Worlds, land on the island and engage in battle with players before Twitch went down. Fortnite shared some numbers from the event on Twitter: a record-breaking 15.3 million players participated in the fight against Galactus, while 3.4 million people tuned in to the Galactus event on YouTube and Twitch, making it the most-streamed Fortnite event ever.
Kotaku's Riley MacLeod personally joined in the battle and shared some of its details. As expected, Galactus appeared on the island and threatened to devour the "Zero Point," which would cause a collapse in reality. In line with Season 4's Marvel theme, Iron Man also appeared to give players jetpacks and explosive Battle Buses for Galactus to eat. In the end, Galactus swallowed the rigged buses and went down, but a cliffhanger ending stated that the story would continue in Season 5.
Fortnite's Season 5 then began on Dec. 2. According to the official site, the new season is titled Zero Point and features hunters from "across realities," including Star Wars bounty hunter the Mandalorian. New locations and weapons were added, as well as a new quest structure, and Epic Games teased that more hunters from other realms will be added later. Season 5 also marks the start of Fortnite's new subscription service, called Fortnite Crew.