Somebody Just Set The Fortnite Record For Solo Kills

Ultimate betrayer or brilliant strategist? That's the question on the minds of many Fortnite players as the in-game record for most kills in a single round was broken over the weekend. But while Elemental_Ray's tactics may be best described as "morally bankrupt" and "ice cold," there's no questioning the fact that, courtesy of a single act of treachery, he now holds the kill count crown.

In case you missed out on the big weekend buzz in Fortnite, a live in-game event saw a rocket blast off into orbit and then cause something bizarre to happen in the skies above the Battle Royale map. What happened immediately after on the playing field, though, was just as monumental.

It might be hard to tell exactly what happened in the above video, but player Elemental_Ray broke the Fortnite record for the most kills in a single round. The previous record holder had earned a whopping 33 kills in a single game while Elemental managed to claim 48, or nearly half of the entire playing field.

So how, exactly, did they pull off this feat? The short answer is "in one fell swoop."

As noted above, there was a rocket launch within Fortnite on Saturday morning; an event that would happen one time, and one time only. Players had been following the countdown of an in-game warning clock for days, with Epic eventually revealing that said clock was winding down to the once-only event. As for the rocket launch, the device blasted off into the sky and started some sort of chain reaction. Bolts flashed all around after the rocket hit orbit, eventually ending with what appears to be a tear in the fabric of space and time. It was yet another brilliant idea on the part of Epic and mostly united the community for a universal viewing party.

On some servers, players joined together in an unspoken cease fire and built large towers with viewing platforms for everyone to get the best view possible. And that is exactly how Elemental_Ray claimed their glory. Elemental at least let folks see the rocket hit the sky, and then proceeded to destroy the base of the tower housing nearly half of the map's players. Destroying a structure's base in Fortnite causes the whole thing to collapse, which is exactly what happened here. The problem, of course, was that the tower was too high for anyone to survive the drop, giving Elemental credit for all of those kills.

Even better is the fact that Elemental_Ray has not claimed so much as a single solo victory within Fortnite, but now they own the record for most kills in a single game. That's kind of beautiful, and will probably serve as a strong motivator for players to top said record via more "legitimate" means.