There are currently 30-minute queues to get into Fortnite for the upcoming Eminem event

:grimacing:

The ending of any Fortnite season and its accompanying event is always an occasion to celebrate (except for Fracture, which we don’t talk about). The conclusion event for the brief Fortnite OG season, dubbed The Big Bang, has already set itself apart: even before the event’s official start, players across all platforms are being slammed with queues up to half an hour just to get inside and play the game.

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For anyone wanting to hop in and witness the event for themselves without having been camped out by their console for an hour, claiming a spot on the overloaded servers is easier said than done.

The Fortnite OG loading screen, complete with queue
The final countdown. Screenshot by Dot Esports

The reason why, granted, isn’t hard to figure out: The Big Bang is the first season-ender event to include a celebrity guest, namely legendary rapper Eminem, and serves as the ending to Fortnite‘s most popular season in quite a while. The return of the original map, a nostalgia-fueled Item Shop, and remixes of classic skins in a cut-down battle pass served to attract players in droves, many of whom hadn’t climbed onto the Battle Bus in years.

Fortnite has also had collaborations with musicians over the years, but they’ve never been woven into the ongoing “story” of the game before—and although they’ve featured big names like Travis Scott previously, someone like Eminem is on another level entirely. Eminem’s immense level of mass appeal, combined with a season that smashed player count record after player count record, has combined in a perfect storm that is proving a little too big for Epic Games to handle.

For anyone who hasn’t managed to slip through the queue yet, it’s looking increasingly likely that they’ll have to wait until Chapter Five to play the game again. Luckily, this should be the last we see of the dastardly queue for a while unless Chapter Five somehow ends with a Taylor Swift event.

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Grant St. Clair
Grant St. Clair has been gaming almost as long as he's been writing. Writing about games, however, is still quite new to him. He does hope you'll stick around to hear about his many, many opinions- wait, where are you going?