'Fortnite' Season 10 Map Changes: Trailer Breaks Space-Time, Tours History
What does "Out of Time" mean for the Season 10 map?
by Corey PlanteThe giant mecha Doggus may have saved the Fortnite: Battle Royale island from the wrath of the kaiju Cattus, but in the Season X story trailer released Wednesday, we learn that it came at a great cost.
That orb of light left over Loot Lake after the “Final Showdown” between Cattus and Doggus — dubbed “The Zero Point” — is about to explode and break the space-time continuum in the most bizarre way we’ve ever seen in the history of Fortnite, leading to map changes that freeze key moments from the game’s past seasons in space and time, hence the Season X theme: “Out of Time.” In this way, Fortnite will celebrate its monumental tenth season by taking a victory lap through the game’s history.
In the minute-long story trailer, Jonesy flees from the exploding orb, but instead of killing him, it instead teleports him into some vast dreamscape the same color as the Purple Cube.
Here, Peely angrily lets Jonesy know that he's watching him.
Chests, items, and various landmarks from Fortnite’s past and present drift past him — including the rocket launched by the Visitor towards the end of Season 4 that created the giant rift in the sky, some holiday-themed decorations from Season 7’s 14 Days of Fortnite, Skull Trooper eating some popcorn, the Butterfly from another dimension and Purple Cube from Season 6, and a ton of other references. Even Dark Voyager from Season 3 has a cameo.
Jonesy also spots a gold tactical submachine gun, a weapon that’s seemingly never existed in the history of the game, offering a slight clue that Season X could explore the future as well. The most important moment, however, happens at the very end when Jonesy wakes up below a massive asteroid about to strike the area right next to Dusty Depot.
The final shot of the Season X trailer teases that key moments will get frozen in time.
Why does this moment get such a special place in the trailer? This meteor destroying Dusty Depot at the end of Season 3 was the first noteworthy instance of supernatural events reshaping the Fortnite map as part of a season’s transition. It led to superheroes appearing in Season 4.
A Brief History of Fortnite’s Map-Changing Events
The Fortnite map undergoes drastic changes for the start of every season, and this already feels like the weirdest one yet. How did we even get here?
During the Final Showdown, Doggus plunged his huge robot fist into the vault under Loot Lake to harness some kind of interdimensional energy. With it, he was able to pull a sword out of the ground and slay Cattus. Other than the corpse, sword, and sparse cases of destruction from the battle, the only residual side effect was an angry-looking rotating orb of white light left over the vault called the Zero Point.
The object’s history can be traced through Fortnite’s ongoing series of barely explained events, all the way back to this meteor strike at Dusty Depot (which was actually the alien Visitor crash-landing into the island).
It sure seems like several key moments, places, and monuments will get enshrined and frozen in place and time during Season X. Will the volcano exist in a perpetual state of mid-eruption? We don’t know just yet, but Fortnite feels more confusing than ever. We’ll learn more when the season officially begins Thursday.
Downtime for Fortnite: Battle Royale Season X begins August 1 at around 4 a.m. Eastern, so players should be able to download the sizable update not that long after.
