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
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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.
An interesting discussion on Tfue's stream at the moment: will there be downtime when the update is actually released? Or is this the downtime? It'll be very frustrating if it's the former...
The rhythm of watching this black hole is very strange. Every few hours, we all get excited that this time, this hour on the clock will finally be the time when something happens. Then it doesn't.
Anyway, everyone's getting excited about what will happen 25 minutes from now. (At 9am UK, 4am EST.)
Ninja notably isn't live at the moment. He's been busy watching the NFL:
And getting upset about it:
There is a lot of excitement about the update dropping in 15 minutes. Streamers are clearly ready for something, though perhaps just the rumours. Who knows!
Some people are annoyed with streamer Dr Lupo, who began a live stream of a countdown timer that reached zero and – nothing happened.
(But he is donating money from the stream.)
10 minutes until our latest big time. WIll it be yet another disappointment, or not?
Ninja has changed his title on Mixer to "CHAPTER 2 FORTNITE AROUND THE CORNERCHAPTER 2 FORTNITE AROUND THE CORNER".
It's now 9am. Let's see if anything is actually going to happen...
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