Fortnite’s Season 4 came to an end today, when Marvel super villain Galactus finally arrived on the battle royale island. As expected, players fought the giant bad guy — and then the event ended on a cliffhanger.
The event started with all of us players stuck on the Helicarrier (which seemed to confuse more than just me). About 10 minutes after 4pm ET, dramatic music started playing. At the end of the countdown, sirens sounded. A giant Galactus rose from the waters, yelling, “Beware, I hunger.” He smashed the carrier, sending players hurtling into the sky — only to be rescued by Iron Man. Iron Man gave players a jetpack, then explained that Galactus wants to eat the Zero Point. I was then warped into my own battle bus rigged with bombs, with the plan being to get Galactus to eat the rigged busses. If we failed, Iron Man explained, Galactus would fully absorb the Zero Point and cause reality to collapse.
We then fought drones with the battle bus’ new laser canons. When things got hairy, Thor showed up and hurled my bus toward Galactus, leading to a Star Wars style drive through a cavern in Galactus’ arm, firing at drones all the while. Iron Man warned me that there were too many drones, only for Wolverine to alight on the outside of my bus and drive them away.
Eventually, I was ejected from my bus and Galactus swallowed them all, which caused him to explode. “Thank you, bus driver,” Iron Man said, before the scene switched to Jonesy on the floor of his office while a phone rang. He gasped awake, the screen went black, and after a long screen that read “connecting,” the game said “To be continued in Season 5,” with a countdown clock that reads that Season 5 starts in about 7 and a half hours, as of this writing.
The appearance of both Marvel superheroes and the Zero Point was fairly expected. Season 4 was centered around characters from the Marvel universe. According to Epic Creative Director Donald Mustard, Galactus was first attracted to the island by the Zero Point, a bit of Fortnite lore that has factored into several of the game’s season-ending events. Since Season 4’s rocket launch, the Zero Point has been messing with the game’s reality, and it played a role in Season 8’s unvaulting event, the giant robot battle of Season 9, and the black hole that ushered in the game’s Chapter 2. It makes sense that Galactus, who consumes planets, would want a piece of all this, and he’s has been getting closer to the island all season.
My game is currently just a menu trumpeting Season 5, even after logging out and back in again. It’s not quite as exciting as the black hole mystery, when players wondered when the game would come back online, but I’m definitely curious to see what happens next.
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