Fortnite has launched a major new battle royale mode, Reload, which drew in more than a million players to the game over the weekend.
Available in both regular and Zero Build variants, Reload is a smaller-scale battle royale option with 40 players organised into 10 squads, with respawns enabled if at least one team member is still alive.
If that sounds familiar, it’s because Reload is very much inspired by Call of Duty: Warzone’s popular Resurgence mode, which offers very similar mechanics. Respawning isn’t instant and requires a wait time which increases over the match – though aggressive play can reduce it, if your teammates take out other players or entire squads.
Fortnite Reload Launch Trailer – New Mode Reload wraps all of this in another very popular wrapper – that of Fortnite’s original Chapter 1 game map that returned last year to enormous success, gifting Fortnite its biggest player numbers ever. In Reload, the action takes place in a shrunken-down version of the original battle royale island, albeit with iconic locations such as Tilted Towers, Pleasant Park and Retail Row replicated faithfully.
Fortnite publicly shares its player numbers, with the numbers of people playing each mode viewable from the game’s main screen. Over the weekend, a peak of 1.6 million people were playing Reload across its regular and Zero Build variants. At the time of writing, Reload is currently Fortnite’s most popular mode, beating its original Battle Royale.
Reload looks to be Fortnite’s big addition for this summer, as Epic Games prepares to go on its twice-annual company break. But there’s plenty already programmed in for the next few weeks, including the game’s previously-leaked Pirates of the Caribbean crossover.
