Fortnite Skin Debut Shatters Previous Twitch Records
On Monday, David "TheGrefg" Martinez broke multiple records with his Fortnite skin reveal on Twitch. The streamer raked in more than 2 million concurrent live views as he debuted his signature skin from Fortnite's Icon Series, an elite group of skins made for the battle royale's top creators.
As The Verge reported, Martinez's stream snatched the "individual concurrent record" from Tyler "Ninja" Blevens, Twitch's most-followed streamer. Before now, one of the few streamers to come even close to Ninja's 2018 record was Shroud, who peaked at 516,289 concurrent viewers back in Aug. 2020.
As Martinez's stream grew, he continued to shatter records. He broke esports league ELEAGUE TV's 1.1 million viewer record and reached a new all-time peak of more than 2.4 million views, according to TwitchTracker.
During the stream, Martinez donned a snazzy red suit as a countdown clock marked two hours until the big presentation. In the meantime, he chatted with his viewers and enjoyed a game of Fortnite. When the countdown struck zero, Martinez unveiled his skin: a shirtless look with red pants and yellow accents, which appears to be reactive and electrically charged. Martinez also debuted his Fortnite emote, which showed him dancing alongside a ball of energy.
Fortnite's Icon Series currently features only eight outfits, including Martinez's. Other creators to have received their own skins include Ninja, Kathleen "Loserfruit" Belsten, Major Lazer, Marshmello, Travis Scott, and Lachlan Ross Power.
TheGrefg Icon Series bundle will include plenty of goodies, like reactive backbling, a controller-themed pickaxe, and more, according to YouTuber and dataminer HYPEX, who summarized Martinez's stream. HYPEX continued to explain that TheGrefg skin will likely hit the Fortnite item shop on Jan. 16 and will cost between 2,000 and 3,000 V-bucks. However, players who do not want to purchase the skin can also apparently participate in a tournament on Jan. 14 and 15 in "The Floor is Lava" game mode. Epic Games has not yet announced a time for the tournament, but players should get ready for the action.
Fortnite is currently in Chapter 2 – Season 5, where players protect the exposed time-looping Zero Point from enemies. Agent Jonesy has brought in several bounty hunters from other realms, including Star Wars' The Mandalorian and God of War's Kratos. Several new NPCs have entered the battle royale to send players on their own bounty hunts and upgrade special weapons.