Week 43

1,610 islands left Discover this week, half the 2,918 that departed in the week of 12 October. The active ratio sits at just 14.3%: only 1 in 7 published islands generates meaningful play traffic. Refresh your best live island now: fewer departures mean less competition for Discover surface while the removal cycle is quiet.

STEAL THE BRAINROT (533.2K) and GO UP FOR BRAINROTS hold the top two UGC CCU positions for ferins this week. Star Wars Droid Tycoon by foad jumped 89.4% to 54.0K, entering the top six as Steal An Egg fell 21.5%. Publish a format variant alongside your best performer: ferins' double-top shows the same audience supports two entries per trend.

Top by Uniques

SARAB سراب by ccstudios debuted at 63.4K uniques, the only growth entry clearing 20K players in the week of 19-25 October. Three of the six growth entries are new this week; POPPY PLAYTIME EVIL [HORROR] debuted in the Halloween window. Launch seasonal islands a full week before the cultural moment peaks to capture early discovery momentum.

D1 / D7 Retention Distribution

0-5% bucket WoW: -3717 islands (D1), -2074 islands (D7) · 90-100% bucket WoW: +50 islands (D1), +3 islands (D7)

Platform D7 fell to 24.35%, down 0.81 points, continuing a two-week decline but slower than Week 42's 1.97-point drop. D1 is flat at 36.64%, so the erosion sits specifically in the day-seven return window. Audit what your island delivers to a player returning on days five through seven, not just day one.

ferins' 6 islands produced 422.8M minutes this week, just 8M short of hive's 430.6M from 13 islands. ferins' 60.9% D1 versus hive's 32.7% explains the gap: retention quality multiplies plays into total minutes output. Build a second gameplay loop into your strongest-D1 island before committing build time to a new one.

Hedge Parkour by heny62 leads avg minutes per player at 1.3K, clearing the 18 October high of 957.5. 1.2K avg minutes per player in hop mountain battle gives heny62 first and second place, confirming a repeatable formula. Apply the same session-depth loop structure from your highest-performing island to your next build before launching anything new.

Category Share of Plays

Fastest-Growing Categories

Top Categories by D1

Category Intensity (Plays / Island)

KPOP DEMON HUNTERS leads category intensity at 2.6K plays per island, down from 2.8K in Week 42. Star Wars leads category plays at 36.37% but sits second in intensity at 1.8K, behind KPOP's 2.6K per island. Build within KPOP DEMON HUNTERS if maximising plays per island matters more than entering the largest category.

Genre Leaderboards

Weighted by players. Peak CCU adds up each island's peak.

Genre Weekly Rollup

Islands by Genre

Top Chart Position This Week

Biggest Chart Movers

Top-100 chart positions only.

Horror claimed two of the eight biggest chart climbers in Epic's genre rankings, week of 19 October. Epic's chart reflects its algorithm, not plays volume; two Horror movers in late October fits the seasonal Halloween window. Push for a chart position gain in Horror now by running a community replay surge before the seasonal window narrows.

Movements & Debuts

Covers the Rare, Legendary and Mythic leagues. Below #500 means no longer ranked 500 or better in that genre. It is not a demotion.

Biggest Climbers

By typical genre rank moved, week over week.

Payout Share, Week over Week

Fight In A School [BATS] by bats climbed 354 positions in Roleplaying & Social, moving from rank 461 to rank 107 this week. A jump of that size in a genre with 27,867 islands shows that fresh, well-tagged content can break through quickly. Audit your Roleplaying & Social island's tags and genre assignment, since correct placement is the prerequisite for chart movement.

ZXRKE'S 1V1 [OG MOVEMENT] by zxrke left Discover by 17 October 2026, carrying 836,317 lifetime plays. An island with that play volume leaving confirms that even established 1v1 formats do not retain Discover presence indefinitely. Monitor your island's Discover visibility regularly and update content or tags before traffic drops signal a delisting risk.

Simulation & Tycoon holds a 40.9% retention-weighted sticky engagement share as of 26 October 2026, per Epic's engagement payout documentation at dev.epicgames.com/documentation/fortnite/engagement-payout-in-fortnite-creative, which weighs playtime plus players returning on subsequent days with no disclosed window. The top three genres together account for 80.0% of sticky engagement, leaving the remaining ten genres to split the rest. Target Simulation & Tycoon or optimise heavily for return-day retention if building outside it, since the formula rewards repeat visits.

SNIPER RIVALS 1v1 by szamanfn grew 898,733% to 134,825 plays in the 17-23 October breakout window. A sniper-specific 1v1 format reaching that scale suggests the format is under-served relative to standard build-fight 1v1 islands. Test a sniper-focused 1v1 island now while the gap between player appetite and supply remains visible in breakout data.

MAPINOX by secret0s tops both favorites per player (0.47) and recommendations per player (0.39) this week. Dual-table leadership means players both endorse and organically share the island, a stronger conversion signal than either metric alone. Design your session flow to trigger a favorites action early and a share action at peak engagement as two separate moments.

Plays fell 5.3% and average session rose the week of 19 October; island removals fell more than half from the week of 12 October. Key signals: 1. Session counter-trend: Average session hit 13.1 minutes the week of 19 October, up while total plays fell 5.3%. 2. Simulation dominance: Simulation & Tycoon led all four genre leaderboards the week of 19 October, holding 40.8% payout share. 3. Horror chart surge: GENESIS SPIRAL climbed 63 chart positions the week of 19 October, from avg #79.5 to avg #16.5. Key areas to monitor for Week 44: - Session length direction as plays recover or fall further - Horror genre chart momentum after GENESIS SPIRAL's 63-position climb - Simulation & Tycoon payout share stability above 40% Final tip: Average session rose to 13.1 minutes while plays fell the week of 19 October: prioritise depth mechanics over new-player acquisition.