Fortnite ended its season 10 with a mega event in which a rocket (and a series of other rockets) crashed into the center of the Fortnite island, sending the entire game into a black hole and leaving gamers staring a giant circle on a screen for hours.
On Tuesday morning, Fortnite returned with a mostly new version of the game. When gamers logged on, they were treated to a new in-game trailer that zoomed out of the black hole, revealing a pink and purple galaxy. That image then rippled as a soldiers boot stepped on said puddle. The soldier, along with three other companions, began to travel through a new forest and jungle. Slowly, viewers came to reveal that the Fortnite island of old is gone, and now there’s a new one for players to compete inside.
Fortnite has always had a running storyline going on behind the scenes. Yes, it’s a battle royale shooting video game where competitors battle in massive scrambles. But the game has distinct plot points it reveals through in-game trailers or loading screens that hint at a larger story.
The new trailer that aired after the relaunch may indicate that the new Fortnite storyline — called Chapter 2 — isn’t just a reshuffled version of the plot. Rather, it may indicate that the new island exists in a parallel universe.
Let’s start with the new island. One quick view of the new island shows something that looks close to the original “Fortnite” island with some minor changes. Most importantly, the new island’s center point is a gaint lake with a center island — a spot remeniscent of Loot Lake in the original island.
And, as Forbes writer Paul Tassi points out, the new island has six locations that are eerily similar to the oriignal map, including Salt Springs, Pleasant Park, Retail Row, Risky Reels (though unnamed, it exists in the game), Weeping Woods (a title closely similar to Wailing Woods on the original map) and Frenzy Farm (a reference to Anarchy Acres from the original map).
The island has geographical similarities to the original map, too. There’s snow, farmland, jungle, water and multiple locations that seem too close to the original map.
Sure, this could be Epic Games just creating a familiar territory for gamers to get their feet wet in the new map. But it also might be a sign that the new map exists in an alternate universe.
“During The End event, we saw the rocket launch as expected, but what was not expected was the revelation of a whole bunch of other rockets too, darting in and out rifts, finally with dozens hammering the spot near the meteor which ended the old map. My theory is that there were dozens, hundreds or even an infinite number of rocket launches taking place across countless parallel Fortnite islands. And once this was all over? We were thrown into one of the new ones, Fortnite Map X, to borrow from DC comics,” Tassi wrote.
More importantly, look at the battle pass theme for this season. Each unlockable character has a good and bad side, a sign that the characters have alter-egos and aren’t just cut and dried versions of themselves.
“I do not think the idea is that these skins are turning to a life of crime, I think they are meant to be parallel earth dopplegangers of each other, similar to how we saw Brite Bomber and Cube-corrupted Brite Bomber a while back. This furthers the alternate dimension theory,” Tassi wrote.