Marshmello, Fortnite make history with in-game concert

Fortnite's Battle Royale video game is displayed on an Apple iPhone; a major bug in Fortnite gave hackers access to millions of player accounts. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by Andrew Harrer. Fortnite's Battle Royale video game is displayed on an Apple iPhone; a major bug in Fortnite gave hackers access to millions of player accounts. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by Andrew Harrer. Photo: Andrew Harrer Photo: Andrew Harrer Image 1 of / 3 Caption Close Marshmello, Fortnite make history with in-game concert 1 / 3 Back to Gallery

Marshmello, a popular DJ and electronic music producer known for wearing a bulbous, marshmallow-like mask, made video game history on Saturday with an in-game Fortnite Battle Royale concert that was reportedly witnessed by a record number of concurrent gamers.

Gaming journalist Geoff Keighley reported that over 10 million people witnessed the groundbreaking event, which Fortnite launched at 1 p.m. local time. The Epic Games product held the previous record for concurrent gaming with 8.3 million late in 2018. Around that same time, the company revealed that it had broken the threshold of 200 million total users.

Holy!!! We just made history today. We can all tell our kids one day that we attended the first ever virtual concert @FortniteGame — marshmello (@marshmellomusic) February 2, 2019

The game has swept through the nation and the world, and locally even Astros players Lance McCullers Jr. and Jake Marisnick ventured into live streaming during the offseason.

In Battle Royale, Fortnite's free-to-play portion of the game, 100 users parachute from an air bus onto an island to fight one another until the last player is standing. Players must fight each other while eluding a "storm" that progressively enshrouds the island, forcing the players into an increasingly smaller space. Players can play in solo, duo, squad and various other modes.

The Marshmello concert occurred at Pleasant Park, a usually "lit" location on the game's map. He performed a 10-minute set that featured a live broadcast of Marshmello hyping the crowd and a special guest in rapper Logic.

All other game modes were disabled to funnel all players into a special mode for the concert. A giant clock in the sky counted down to the show, which became an eruption of music and lights complete with zero gravity jumps and wind-tunnel soaring. For 10 minutes, Fortnite turned into a sweaty rave.

All weapons were disabled until a mass redeploy at the end of the show, as to prevent any mid-concert mischief. For those who missed the live event, an encore was delivered at 1 a.m. Sunday morning.

Fortnite fans now wonder what revolutionary virtual event Epic Games will come up with next.