Fortnite: The End – How Epic Games teased the end of their sandbox

It’s the end of the world, as we know it. A massive black hole has opened up in the sky, collapsing all of reality into a singularity from which there is no escape. Millions of rabid gamers currently observe the endless void, as something begins to change on the other side. How did Fortnite get to this point though?

What’s the origin of this story and how did vague clues all tease the end of everything before today? That’s a story that began all the way back in February 2018, as Epic Games began laying the seeds for a story that would involve mysterious new alien visitors, giant cubes on a mission and a kaiju vs robot fight that would make Guillermo del Toro jealous. Here’s a brief recap on how Fortnite’s world came to an end.

Season 3 – The Meteor appears

A few months into Fortnite Battle Royale, and Epic Games already had an idea in mind for the future of the hit game. First spotted in February 2018, a meteor lit up the night sky two months into season 3, the first of many threats that would begin to transform the world around players. On day one of season 4 later that year in May, the meteor would crash and dramatically alter the landscape surrounding the impact zone of Dusty Depot.

Season 4 – Brace for impact

In the aftermath of the meteorite impacting Dusty Depot, Hope Rocks are launched all over the map, the villain Omega escapes from prison after coming into contact with one of these shards and rifts begin popping up across the map. While all of this occurs, the strange robotic Visitor emerged from the meteorite and immediately makes his way to Omega’s lab and begins working on a rocket that is aimed at Tilted Towers.

At the last second, the rocket is teleported away from its target and is thought to be forever lost…

Season 5 – The birth of the Cube

When a giant rift opens in the sky, its unleashed power ends up creating a mysterious cube which sinks into the waters of Loot Lake, thus making it possible to cross the area on foot. Also known as Kevin, the cube would eventually leave the lake and begin making its way across the map for some unknown reason at the time.

Season 6 – Darkness rises

Having gained some level of sentience, Kevin left Loot Lake and in its place a gigantic whirlpool was created. Energy from corrupted areas would be siphoned off, as Kevin eventually reached an endgame where it exploded and took several players with it to the In-Between dimension. Meanwhile, AIM spies arrived on the scene, observing the island as an iceberg made its way towards the battle royale zone and winter began to cast an icy spell on the terrain.

Season 7 – You better watch out

Between the war of the Ice King and Queen to keep the Prisoner in ice (unsuccessfully mind you) and Sgt. Winter unleashing his Slushy Soldiers in a declaration of war, a small but major event played out: Multiple fissures would begin forming around the map, and while their damage was minimal they did succeed in destroying a Tilted Towers building.

Even more worrying, was the situation in Wailing Woods as the grass around that forest had begun to die, with a volcano eventually emerging from the ground.

Season 8 – The eruption

Damn government! The feds had begun snooping around at this point, completely ignoring the fact that a freakin’ battle royale was occurring around them. Digging up numerous sites on the map, Pleasant Park homeowners would begin building bunkers and the nearby volcano would start to show signs of activity, erupting during week 9 and destroying several parts of the map.

Season 9 – The future is yours

Giant monster fight. What more do you need to know? Faced with an unstoppable threat, Singularity unleashes Mecha in order to stave off the threat. Eventually defeating it, Mecha would then blast off into space as the world of Fortnite reached the endgame.

Season X – Out of Time

With the launch of a second rocket, The Visitor succeeds in cracking the sky and bringing forth more destruction from The Seven. Rifts shattered the skies, and a story that began with the enigmatic Seven finally unfolded. Data logs for the group revealed the existence of their plan some time ago, with those transmissions all pointing towards something known as the Zero Point:

‘What the Seven of us are attempting is very risky. I suspect They are not the only ones watching. But it must be done or we lose the Bridge forever.’

‘I speculate that no one calculated the formation of the Island. That interdimensional matter collisions would resolve rather than push. Now that I witness it first hand, it’s obvious that Pinching alone made it inevitable.’

‘When I hear this, again, will it help me remember? Or once Looped will I be just as muted as the others? No matter – it seems the lengthy precautions worked.’

‘The (garbled) Theorem was a success! I… us… you arrived outside of the loop at the exact moment of expansion. This effectively paused the singularity, giving us time to create the devices needed to synchronize the Junction.’

What I didn’t factor was that the only way to trigger the device was from within the Loop itself. Thus this hasty and primitive recording. And why now you… I find myself Looped.’

‘Activate the beacon at precisely the moment this timer reaches nothing. The Zero Point must be contained once more. If They are correct, it will be the end.’ – The Scientist

The end result was cataclysmic to say the least. More rifts appeared, and a vortex would eventually suck all of creation inside of it with nothing more than a black hole remaining. Some numbers would begin to show up around the event horizon of that supermassive entity, which when put into comparison by the number of words in all of the Visitor’s recordings from the Season 10 Out of Time Challenges, a message would read out:

I was not alone, others were outside the loop, this was not calculated, The Nothing is now inevitable.

What’s next for Fortnite? Nobody knows for certain, but there may still be a new chapter yet to be written…

Last Updated: October 14, 2019