After weeks of anticipation, Fortnite‘s big Season 10 event happened. Was the wait worth it? Yes.
At the start of the event, the only available mode was a team fight called “The End.” In my match, players clustered around Dusty Depot’s rocket. At the end of the countdown, the rocket launched into the sky and cracked it. Pieces fell off, with bright blue capsules circling around the map. A capsule with a bright red line fell from a crack above Loot Lake, causing an explosion that launched players into the sky.
The bubble around Loot Lake glowed and flickered, and a meteor surrounded by capsules fell onto it. As I watched, familiar items like tomato heads and the battle bus were sucked into the explosion, including, eventually, the entire map itself. I was left with only a dark screen with a wormhole in the middle and the option to exit. When I logged out and tried to log back in, the game asked me to log into my Epic account. After attempting to load for a while, I was told my login failed. After a few more tries, my game logged in, but I was taken back to the black hole.
Currently, the Fortnite website is just a blank Twitch stream. The logo on the game in my Epic library is just the wormhole, and Fortnite‘s Twitter logo is just black. Streams of the game show the black wormhole screen. The status page reads “anomaly detected” on all services except the Epic store.
The event has been teased for weeks, as the Visitor’s rocket steadily being built in the returned location of Dusty Depot. The Visitor showed up in Season 3’s meteor and, this season, has been considered responsible for the time distortions that have brought old areas of Fortnite‘s world back to the map. The game’s overtime challenges had players finding voice recordings of the Visitor, talking about time loops, “the formation of the island,” and “the end.” Developer Epic has gotten in on this apocalyptic vibe, tweeting that “the end is near” and making the unusual decision to have the next season start immediately following the event, instead of the standard few days later. Along with leaks suggesting the next season will be Fortnite‘s “chapter 2″ and dataminers finding a host of new place names, players were expecting something cataclysmic, and that’s certainly what they got.
Fortnite‘s Season 10 was polarising, with unpopular additions and a divided community. I’m pretty sure everyone is ready for a change, but I have no idea what it will be. Looks like I’ll be spending the rest of my Sunday sitting in front of my computer waiting to see what’s next.
The numbers 11, 146, 15, and 62 were occasionally appearing above the black hole. Eleven makes sense for the new season, but what about the rest? The official PlayStation support Twitter then reminded players that their V-Bucks and items are OK.
Epic is aware of the Fortnite Blackout. Please be assured that your inventory items and V-Bucks are secure. Please reach out to Epic for more details.
— Ask PlayStation (@AskPlayStation) October 13, 2019
Esports consultant Rod Breslau is citing some pretty huge viewership numbers for the event.
Fortnite’s ‘The End’ event will go down as the most watched gaming event in history for western audiences
4.5M+ on YouTube
1.5M+ on Twitch
1M+ on Twitter
and 37 people on Mixerjust incredible
— Rod Breslau (@Slasher) October 13, 2019
[referenced url=”https://www.kotaku.com.au/2019/10/fortnite-season-10-has-been-extended-to-october-13-according-to-todays-1041-patch-notes/” thumb=”https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/t_ku-large/edlkkxfsvil8wnushiw0.png” title=”Fortnite’s Season 10 Has Been Extended A Week” excerpt=”Fortnite Season 10 has been extended and will end on October 14. You’ll have another week to complete your challenges, but you’ll also have another week of dealing with the chaos this season has brought.”]
Update: If that wasn’t enough, you can play a minigame in the black hole. Some players are correlating the numbers to the Visitor’s audio logs and suggesting it spells out “I was not alone. Others were outside the loop.” So far, one Fortnite leaker is suggesting the downtime could last until Tuesday, based on things they’ve found in the game’s webpage code. Let’s hope not.
Comments
5 responses to “Fortnite’s Season 10 Event Seems To Have Ended Its World [Updated]”
“37 people on Mixer”
Ouch.
Well I guess we know how Ninja’s going these days. ^_-
It would be nice if this really was the end so we can all move on and start obsessing over some other banal game but Epic isn’t the kind of company to kill off its golden geese. Especially since it’s most likely the reason they can afford to take less of a cut from sales on the game store.
Not my style of game, but I find it interesting how long the tail is becoming for games like this.
It appears to me that we might be in a maturing phase where, at least as far as multiplayer is concerned, technology is about where it needs to be for most purposes and funding models have evolved to the point where studios can readily fund continuous development.
Hopefully this will result in tighter, better games as studios are able to make incremental progress and refinement rather than cycling the hamster wheel of launching more or less exactly the same game, just with better graphics, every couple of years.
I’ve been gaming for 37 years, and while Fortnite is not the highest artistic or narrative point of the medium, I’d say it’s pretty f**kin far from banal!
I think we have to call it “Untitled” golden geese these days.