Fortnite Player Count Drops Two-Year Low Despite Star Wars Event

Fortnite

June 4, 2025

Ahsan Kabir

Fortnite, once the king of online multiplayer games, is having a bit of a rough patch lately. In May 2025, the average daily player count slipped to 994,711. That’s the lowest it’s been since May 2023, when numbers dropped to just over 927,000. And what’s surprising is-it happened despite a full-on Star Wars crossover that was supposed to hype things up.

Fortnite Player Count Drops Two-Year Low Despite Star Wars Event

Image Credits: Epic Games

Star Wars Event Fails to Boost Fortnite Player Count

The “Galactic Battle” event came out on May 2, and it brought in some big names like Darth Jar Jar and Emperor Palpatine. They added Force abilities for players to use, and you could even fly around in X-Wings or TIE Fighters, which honestly sounded like it should’ve made more impact. Plus, there was a special in-game premiere of Tales of the Underworld before it released on Disney+, which looked like a big move. But despite all that, it somehow didn’t translate to more players. The buzz was there for a bit, but it just didn’t carry forward in the numbers like they probably expected.

Comparing to Fortnite’s High Points

It’s not like Fortnite can’t pull numbers. Back in November 2023, when Fortnite OG launched and brought back the original Chapter 1 map, they hit 44.7 million players in one day. That’s massive. Then, in November 2024, the “Remix: The Finale” event brought in over 14 million concurrent players. Artists like Eminem, Snoop Dogg, and Ice Spice helped make those events pop off. Those moments were built around nostalgia and music, two things that clearly struck a chord.

What Caused the Fortnite Player Count Drop?

There are a bunch of reasons why things might be slowing down:

Chapter 5 Season 3 Changes: The new season, “Wrecked,” focused on vehicles, Nitro boosts, and medallions. But not everyone’s happy. A lot of longtime players say this doesn’t feel like the Fortnite they know.
Too Many Bots: People are saying that matches are now full of bots, like up to 92 bots in a 100-player lobby. Wins feel kind of meaningless when most of the match isn’t even human players.

What to Expect Next?

Epic hasn’t been without problems of its own either. Back in 2024, they let go of around 16% of their staff, and a lot of players feel that this has slowed down how often updates come out. Fortnite did finally return to iOS this year after being gone for five years, but mobile is really a fix for the current issue.

The drop in Fortnite player count in 2025 can mean some popular game modes won’t stick around for long. Leaks are already suggesting that the ranked mode for Fortnite OG could be removed. This won’t be anything new for Epic Games. They recently ended the ranked mode for Fortnite OG Zero Build because of “matchmaking health” concerns. Even so, a lot of players are still eager and hopeful for what Chapter 6 Season 3 will bring to the game. Here are all the upcoming Fortnite content drops to look forward to.