Leaker reveals how Fortnite kept Travis Scott event hidden

Calum Patterson
Travis Scott in

A Fortnite leaker has revealed how Epic Games tried to keep the Travis Scott event a secret and avoid major data mined leaks from spoiling it, by using code words.

This isn’t the first time Epic has put on a major event, as the previous in-game concert by Marshmello was also a viral hit. However, that event was leaked heavily in advance.

That isn’t to say that the Travis Scott event was kept totally secret, as leakers did find evidence of a skin for the rapper in the game files, but no one knew a major concert was coming until Epic teased it in-game themselves.

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This was a big improvement in Epic’s ongoing battle against leakers, and it looks like they used some simple trickery to avoid it being easily found in the game files.

Unlike the Travis Scott skin (which was simply a cosmetic set called ‘Travis Scott’), the event itself was called ‘CycloneJerky’ in the game files. This led to rampant speculation about the “jerky event”, but no one had any idea what this meant.

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Leakers did note that the Marshmello concert had also been called Jerky, but it looks like this is Epic’s way of misleading data miners to prevent them from finding big upcoming content or events.

It looks like ‘CycloneJerky’ was simply used for ‘CJ’, standing for Cactus Jack, one of Travis Scott’s nicknames.

In fact, it’s not the first time Epic have used this trick. Lucas7Yoshi also gave examples of other initials used to cover up new content in the game files.

These include ‘ZebraWallet’ for Zone Wars, or ‘TourBus’ for Tyler Blevins (aka Ninja).

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Perhaps Epic thought that the ‘TS’ initials would have been too obvious for data miners, and so opted for Travis’s Cactus Jack name instead.

We can likely expect more in-game concerts in the future too, not least because of the massive viewing numbers for this latest event. Over 10 million players watched live in-game.

Additionally, the new single revealed in the concert, with Travis Scott and Kid Cudi, instantly shot to number one, proving a Fortnite concert could be the perfect way for artists to promote new music.

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About The Author

Calum is Dexerto's Managing Editor, based in Scotland. Joining Dexerto in 2017, Calum has years of experience covering esports, gaming and online entertainment, and now leads the team to deliver the best coverage in these areas. An expert on all things Twitch and gaming influencers, he's also an expert in popular shooters like Apex Legends, CS2 and Call of Duty. You can contact Calum at calum.patterson@dexerto.com.