Fortnite map wiped out by black hole to mark end of Season 10

It is not clear when or even if the game will return

Related video: Fortnite season 10 official trailer (Fortnite)

Fortnite has been destroyed by a huge asteroid, and replaced with a black hole.

The in-game event wiped out the entire map and means that its millions of players are now unable to get into the game at all.

Instead, they have been encouraged to watch a mysterious live stream of a black hole.

The asteroid collision marked the end of Season 10. Developers Epic Games tend to mark the close of the game’s “seasons” with major events that can be watched within the game.

But it has led to a variety of questions about Season 11. Usually, such updates bring tweaks to the map or other alterations to the game – rather than wiping out the entire world and leaving it impossible to play.

It is not clear when or even if the game will return. (It is almost certain that it will, however, since Epic has made billions of dollars through the game.)

In the meantime, players have been encouraged to tune in to a wildly popular live stream which just shows the black hole. At some point, that will presumably reveal what is going to happen in Season 11.

Fortnite deleted everything else from its Twitter account and gave no more information about what had happened to the game.

Fans had expected Season 10 to come to a dramatic close, since Epic teased that there would be a major “The End” event over the weekend. It was also marked by a countdown timer which appeared within the game.

Players who were in the world when that timer reached its end saw a huge meteor shower fall on the map and seemingly destroy all of it. Those players then fell out of the world and the screen was replaced with the black hole – which continues to be all that is left of the game.

[14 October 2019 18:43 · Andrew Griffin]

(This helps deepen the mystery of why exactly Epic has undertaken such a huge outage. If it is to give developers time to update the game and everything is ready, then presumably the leak makes little difference and the update could arrive any time. But if it is just to get people going, then perhaps it will choose to push out the update earlier.)

[14 October 2019 18:45 · Andrew Griffin]

Just 15 minutes until the rumoured release at 2pm eastern time. (That would mean the outage was 24 hours long, and be in keeping with some other clues, but is very, very, very far from confirmed!)

[14 October 2019 18:57 · Andrew Griffin]

If you want to watch along – and probably be disappointed – when whatever is going to happen in five minutes happens or doesn't happen, here's where you can do that:

[14 October 2019 19:00 · Andrew Griffin]

It's 7pm and nothing is happening. The black hole is still black, still a hole.

[14 October 2019 19:05 · Andrew Griffin]

Ninja is, according to his Instagram story, watching NFL today. That might suggest that he's been tipped off that he can take the day off... (It could also mean that his "taco" post earlier could be a reference to taco Tuesdays.)

[14 October 2019 19:05 · Andrew Griffin]

Still nothing happening on the stream. Black hole is very black and very holey.

[14 October 2019 19:19 · Andrew Griffin]

On social networks like Twitter and Reddit, there seems to have been a change in tone: where people were once hopeful, excited and intrigued, there's a note of weary resignation creeping in. One day feels like a good amount of time to get people interested; more than a day feels like enough time that people will get tired out.

But perhaps all of that will be undone when the update comes out.

[14 October 2019 19:29 · Andrew Griffin]

Occasionally, the black hole seems to grow or change shape. But it seems to just be on repeat, or at least be meaningless – eventually, it will shrink back down again, and nothing new will happen.

[14 October 2019 20:31 · Andrew Griffin]

Still just as black, and just as much of a hole.

[14 October 2019 21:09 · Andrew Griffin]

Streamer True has posted this. But what does it mean?