Fortnite’s big Eminem event is almost here.
Credit: Epic GamesUpdated 12/2/2023. See updates below.
Fortnite’s massive Eminem ‘Big Bang’ live-event will end the Fortnite OG season and kick off a “new beginning” for the battle royale game.
The live-event is the first we’ve had in quite some time, and brings to an end the most popular—but also shortest—season in Fortnite’s history. Fortnite OG was so popular that over 100 million players hopped into the game during November to try out the original map and weapons. That’s the most engagement Fortnite has ever seen, including when it was in its heyday years ago.
Now the season is drawing to a close. Today, the Big Bang live-event will change everything—though I’m not sure what Epic Games has in mind when they say it’s a “new beginning for Fortnite.”
Chapter 5 Is About To Begin, With Crazy Crossovers
We do know, thanks to leaks, that some of the Chapter 5, Season 1 Battle Pass collaborations include Peter Griffin from Family Guy and Snake from Metal Gear Solid. Leaks also point to new racing modes, music/rhythm modes and some kind of LEGO mode. We’ll find out soon enough.
But before the next season begins, the Big Bang live-event goes live, featuring none other than rapper Eminem. There are themed skins in the shop before the event, with Rap Boy, Slim Shady and Marshall Never More Outfits going live earlier this week.
Fortnite x Eminem
Credit: Epic GamesBig Bang Live-Event Start-Time
The Big Bang event kicks off Saturday, December 2nd at 2pm ET / 11am PT. Players will be able to login to the event’s pre-lobby 30 minutes ahead of time, which is highly recommended to avoid long queues that could interfere with your ability to get into the game. You can play with friends in parties of up to four people.
If you’re not able to play on your console or PC, Epic notes that you can play via Xbox Cloud Gaming, Nvidia GeForce NOW or Amazon Luna on your mobile device as well. You’ll also be able to watch via any number of streamers on Twitch, YouTube and elsewhere.
There’s no word on how long the event will last but plan for a good half hour. Usually there are multiple stages for events like these, with some kind of special mode to mess around in after the show.
Server Downtime
Fortnite servers will go down Saturday starting at 11:30pm ET / 8:30pm PT for the v28.00 update. Most Epic-made Fortnite modes will be down beginning at noon today, though player-made experiences will still be up until downtime begins. This means you won’t have much to do other than the live-event or player content today.
Downtime typically lasts several hours, so it’s likely the new Chapter and Season will kick off in the wee hours Sunday morning, though in the past we’ve also seen complete blackouts with the game going down for days. That seems unlikely here, but not out of the realm of possibility.
See you tomorrow during the Big Bang live-event. If I make it into a game, I’ll post footage (and maybe even stream) on my YouTube channel as well. Stay tuned.
Update — The Big Bang Live-Event Is Over But It’s Coming Back
Players—including me—were hit with massive queues when logging in to play the Big Bang event. I had over an hour-long queue 22 minutes before the event kicked off, making it impossible to login and play or record footage of the vent.
Epic Games somehow didn’t anticipate just how huge this would be, though I’m not sure how that’s possible given the 100 million player count in November and the massive hype surrounding this event.
In any case, I was able to watch the event on various streams. In many ways, the event was a repeat of the Chapter 1 rocket, which blasts off into the sky, creates a rift and then blasts back down to Loot Lake where dozens of smaller rockets pummeled a force field around the location. A massive implosion of stars and color followed the rocket barrage as everything in the map was slowly pulled into the nexus, leading to another black hole. Even the music from the downtime black hole screen replayed at this point.
Fortunately, this time there wasn’t a four-day downtime immediately after. Instead, a psychedelic burst of color blasted players into space—a void filled with teasers including Fall Guys. Moments later, everyone was transformed into LEGO figures showing off the new LEGO x Fortnite mode. Pretty soon we’ll all be building LEGO houses in Fortnite, which is admittedly pretty cool. As players hang-glided around the LEGO map, we saw dragons attacking castles and other crazy sights.
All three new modes coming to Fortnite were shown off in the event. After LEGO land, players landed in race cars and started zipping around the map’s massive race track. This is the second new mode coming to Fortnite.
The third is the new rhythm and music mode—think Guitar Hero meets Fortnite. Unsurprisingly, this was debuted during the event’s third act featuring two of Eminem’s songs. Players were able to play along with the first song a la Guitar Hero. In the second, Marshal Mathers gets huge and walks around destroying buildings like Godzilla.
From here, players were once again shot into space where beams of light poured out of colorful space holes, connecting various Fortnite locations and items like the Durrr Burger and Battle Pass.
Edit: The three new modes are self-contained games within Fortnite. These are:
- LEGO Fortnite — A survival/crafting LEGO adventure.
- Rocket Racing — A racing game developed by Rocket League studio Psynonix.
- Fortnite Festival — A music game developed by Rock Band studio Harmonix where you can play in bands solo or with friends. This is kicking off with The Weeknd on December 9th
Watch the full event without commentary below:
You can check out the new Chapter 5, Season 1 trailer right here.
When Can You Replay (Or Re-Watch) The Event?
Epic Games says that they’ll be “adding two more showings of The Big Bang after the 2pm ET show” but has not announced the actual time just yet. I’ll update this post the moment this information is available. Stay tuned.
Edit: I’ve just heard back from Epic Games. The next two time-slots for the Big Bang event are:
- 5pm ET / 2pm PT
- 11pm ET / 8pm PT
Hopefully the queues aren’t too long!
What did you think of the event? Let me know on Twitter or Facebook.