Fortnite season 11: What is Chapter 2, what has changed in patch note update and what was the black hole?

The black hole that replaced the game has some strange Easter eggs and a series of mystery numbers – but nothing that adds up to a clue

Fortnite season 10 official trailer

Fortnite, after being hit by an asteroid, has disappeared and been replaced by a huge black hole.

The game is completely unplayable at the moment, with players unable to start a game and instead simply having to view that black hole as it swirls around.

The events mark the end of Fortnite's Season 10, and presumably the start of Season 11. But they are wrapped in mystery, amid feverish speculation about what will happen next.

Fortnite Season 11/Chapter 2 is now out. For everything you need to know, click here.

What happened?

Fortnite is destroyed – and in its place is just a big black hole.

Developers Epic Games had long teased an event called "The End", which would come on 13 October. It was supplemented by a big countdown clock in the game, which suggested that something big would happen when it reached zero.

People crowd the display area for the survival game Fortnite at the 24th Electronic Expo, or E3 2018, in Los Angeles, California on on June 12, 2018 (FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP/Getty Images)

And it did. Players that were inside the game saw a flurry of falling asteroids, which destroyed the game – they then fell into a black hole, which replaced the entire universe of the game.

Now, that's all players can see if they try and play. And it's all Epic will say about it, too, since it deleted its social channels and replaced them with a live stream of the black hole.

Can I play Fortnite now?

No. Anyone trying to will be greeted with the black hole.

There is, seemingly, no way around this – no trick to get back into Season 10 or play an older version of the game. Since the battle royale part of the game (and the story mode, too) rely on network features, Epic is able to change or destroy the game whenever it wants and there is no way for players to stop it happening.

Fortnite does include a minigame, however, if you wish to do something in the game. If you open up the black hole and do the Konami Code, a minigame will pop up – though it isn't anything like Fortnite.

There are of course a variety of other battle royale games in which you can get your fix – and some of them, like Apex Legends, are free. So those could be a good way to get your fix while you wait.

But ultimately there is no real way around the outage. Fortnite is down until Epic makes it come back.

Is Fortnite going to come back?

It is almost certainly going to come back. There are a variety of clues, but the ultimate evidence is outside the game: Epic makes vast amounts of money from Fortnite, and it would be very unusual for developers to throw it all away.

That means that after all of this will presumably come Season 11, or whatever Epic chooses to name the next installment of the game.

But we don't know when, how, or with what changes. It may come back in an entirely different form – perhaps, for instance, with a completely different map.

Are there any clues about what will happen next?

Epic has started to offer hints. But it's not clear what exactly they mean, or whether they mean anything at all.

The most meaningful one is the fact that, occasionally, numbers come out of the black hole.

Players found that the first of those numbers, when put into Google Maps, sent players to a huge gathering of crustaceans on a beach – that is, a crab rave, just like the meme. That suggests the numbers could be a largely meaningless joke meant to frustrate users.

New numbers have also started coming out: in addition to the crab numbers (11, 146, 15, and 62), the game is also spewing forth others (87, 14, 106, 2, and 150). The significance of those – whether they are more co-ordinates, or if all of the numbers will eventually form into one big clue – is still a mystery.

[14 October 2019 15:13 · Andrew Griffin]

[14 October 2019 15:21 · Andrew Griffin]

This tweet is a joke, obviously – but it's a commonly shared point

Fortnite had a rough time through Season 10, with various people complaining about the game being broken and threatening to quit. You could have expected that this whole affair would lead to more of that frustration, as people are forced to wait to even play the game at all.

But people seem to be not all that annoyed, as a rule! Some are even happy and excited!

(We'll have to see how long that lasts.)

[14 October 2019 16:05 · Andrew Griffin]

Fortnite isn't the only thing not working today. Snapchat is down too!

[14 October 2019 18:06 · Andrew Griffin]

There's now just under an hour until 7pm UK time, or 2pm on the east coast. This feels like a time that you might finally unveil what's hiding behind the black hole, maybe? But who knows!

[14 October 2019 18:25 · Andrew Griffin]

The trailer for the new Fortnite map and world have leaked, as well as what will play host to it: Fortnite Chapter 2, season 1.

[14 October 2019 18:26 · Andrew Griffin]

Here it is. Avoid if you don't want to see spoilers!

[14 October 2019 18:28 · Andrew Griffin]

(That video – like all the others – is very likely to disappear very quickly. It probably has already. All of the videos are getting taken down very quickly for copyright violations.)

[14 October 2019 18:30 · Andrew Griffin]

But here are the salient points from it:

• The graphics seem to be improved
• The world has completely changed
• You can do entirely new things, like swim and carry teammates.

All very much unconfirmed of course, but the trailer did look legitimate.

[14 October 2019 18:35 · Andrew Griffin]

Here's a write-up of the leak.

[14 October 2019 18:39 · Andrew Griffin]

The leaked video still offers no clue about when all of this will arrive, of course. Epic has still officially gone dark, and hasn't confirmed when or even whether the game will be coming back.