'Fortnite' just had its biggest month ever, with nearly 80 million people playing in August

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• "Fortnite" is among the most popular games in the world, and August was its biggest month yet.
• In August 2018, Epic Games says that nearly 80 million people played "Fortnite."
• The extreme popularity of "Fortnite" continues to grow, even after a year of explosive growth.

The fervor around "Fortnite" is reaching a fever pitch: Nearly 80 million people played the game in August, according to maker Epic Games.

More specifically, 78.3 million people played "Fortnite" last month. That makes August the biggest month ever for the cartoonish, surrealist shooter. And that's really saying something in the context of the game's speedy ascent to the top of pop culture mountain.

Perhaps you've already forgotten: The incredibly popular, free-to-play Battle Royale mode was only added to "Fortnite" in September 2017.

It's been barely a year since "Fortnite" began its climb to the top, and already its victory dances have bled into professional sports. It feels like months since Drake joined up with Tyler "Ninja" Blevins to stream the game on Twitch, thus boosting its visibility even more - that's because it was months ago, way back in March. March!

Youtube / Ninja

Ninja and Drake played "Fortnite: Battle Royale" together on PlayStation 4, over the internet, and streamed it on Twitch. It broke Twitch streaming records by hundreds of thousands of viewers.

And now, just one year after Battle Royale hit "Fortnite," more people are playing it monthly than there are people living in Drake's home country - by a factor of two! Way to make Canada look underpopulated, "Fortnite."

Epic Games announced the new peak player count number - which includes players across Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PC, Mac, iOS, and Android - alongside news of the upcoming "Fall Skirmish" competitive season.

This time, $4 million is up for grabs in competitive play across a variety of modes. Not too shabby! Epic promises that it's strengthened its service ahead of the fall season - during the summer season, competitive players encountered frustrating issues with game stability. Sometimes they encountered those issues during crucial matches, to say nothing of issues some folks had attempting to spectate the matches. In both cases, Epic says it has made "targeted improvements" to get things fixed before the Fall Skirmish kicks off in October.

Fancy yourself a better player than the other 80 million "Fortnite" players out there? Perhaps the Fall Skirmish events are for you! Check out the full details of the "Fortnite" Fall Skirmish event right here.

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