Fortnite Gets Sucked Into a Black Hole, Marks The End of Season X

Update 4: Fortnite Chapter 2, Season 1 is now live. You can read more about it here. 

Update 3: Fortnite Insider has shared what appears to be a leaked image from the Italian App Store. In it, characters can be seen looking at a new Fortnite map. To avoid any potential spoilers, you can see that image here. 

Update 2: According to Fortnite News, Fortnite Chapter 2, Season 1 is set to kick off on October 15. Players in China have shared images indicating the start of date of the new chapter and season. 

Update 1: It appears a new Fortnite Chapter 2 trailer has leaked online. You can see it here. 

Original Story: Fortnite is currently a black hole. Literally. And no one knows exactly what’s happening. 

If you’ve somehow been off the internet this weekend, you might have missed Fortnite‘s in-game Season X event, The End, which took over Twitch and other streaming platforms, as well as a large (large) chunk of social media. 

The TL;DR is that the rocket being built in Dusty Depot by the Visitor/Scientist finally launched, creating a vast interdimensional rift in the sky above the Fortnite map. Other fractures were quickly triggered, spawning more and more rockets before the meteor above Dusty Depot was sucked into a rift. 

A laser then appeared in the sky, more rockets flew at the map, and the meteor reappeared above loot lake, smashing it to pieces. A singularity was created, and the Fortnite map was sucked in. 

Those watching the stream were then treated to a black screen, out of which a black hole slowly appeared. As of this writing, millions of people have been staring at a black screen while they wait for Fortnite to return. Millions more are still doing so.  

If you missed the event itself, here’s a video recap of what happened via BULL-Fortnite on YouTube:

So when will Fortnite Season 11 start? That’s anyone’s guess. Outside of the live stream currently taking over the game’s Facebook page, there have been no new Facebook posts since the event occurred this weekend.

The official Fortnite Twitter has the event pinned to the top of its page; tweets from October are completely gone, while only retweets going back to August 15 remain. 

The Fortnite website is gone, too, replaced by the stream. Log into the Fortnite Discord, and you’ll find it completely empty; all of the channels are gone. 

As of now, Fortnite servers are still down. According to several reports, Chinese data miners uncovered information pointing to a return this afternoon at 4:05 p.m. EST. Fortnite streamer Tyler “Ninja” Blevins has also hinted at a Tuesday return with his somewhat but not totally cryptic “tacos” tweet: 

However, there have been other reports that the battle royale hit might be down until Thursday, October 17. As pointed out by Fortnite leaker Lucas7Yoshi on Twitter, code from the official Fortnite website originally stated the game’s servers would return on Tuesday at 4 a.m. EST.

However, the site code was updated Sunday night to reflect a 4 a.m. EST Thursday return time. 

In a fun nod to not only the history of gaming but Fortnite‘s rival restauranteurs, those watching the stream can pass the time by entering the infamous Konami code. Doing so brings up a Galaga-esque shooting game featuring a pizza and a cheeseburger. 

Unsurprisingly, Epic Games has been silent on the whole event. There’s currently no official word when Fortnite will actually return or what it will look like when it does return. 

For now, we have a black hole to stare at and a few grain-of-salt leaks to consider. Whatever Fortnite becomes, whether that’s Fortnite Season 11 or Fortnite 2, is still up in the air. However, it’s sure to be epic (ahem). 

Sources: Twitter, PC Gamer, Forbes