The Story of Fortnite Battle Royale Chapter 1
An explanation of Fortnite Battle Royale's beginnings, and the story that shaped the game into a pop culture phenomenon
‘A constantly evolving, changing, and living Place. You never know what might happen next... but where just about anything is possible. That is what we are trying to make.’ - Donald Mustard
Donald Mustard (who was the creative director of Fortnite from 2016 until his retirement in 2023) represented a tiny portion of the team that create Fortnite, but he was essential to its success, its groundbreaking achievements in entertainment, and the narrative that encompasses Fortnite Battle Royale. He created an evolving story in which The Island – Battle Royale’s arena – was the main character. Although he had planned an arc for this story, the thing about Fortnite being a video game – constantly adjusting to players’ reactions – was that it could be tweaked along the way. So, the story was told like a campfire tale. A story of shared experiences.
Our ability to adapt to The Island’s changes is what drives this innovative concept. Imagine our surprise when the comet in Season 3 didn’t hit Tilted Towers. These events – the rocket, The Cube – create nostalgia and build mythology. It’s an ever-evolving way to tell a story.
Donald Mustard spoke often about how Fortnite embraces agency. We, as players, become the authors. We are active participants in the narrative. We get to dress up as whoever we want and make our own imprint on the world. A metaverse was constructed inside the game, converging all forms of media, ARG, and pop culture. You can find Marvel, John Wick, and Marshmello, all on The Island, but it makes sense. The Island is grounded by its own rules that make it real – the game is the story. It makes sense why we can be a living banana and dance the Floss. The Island is alive.
Epic Games are trying a different medium every day to create a new language of entertainment through the way we interact with agency, emotions, and the different worlds thrown into the game. Thousands of people work to make this magic. What players and developers do together is better than what an individual can create – that is the hypothesis of Fortnite. An ever-evolving Place. We grow, the developers grow – the game grows. Epic truly believes that we are all game developers, and their goal has always been for us to build our own ‘Fortnite’. This started with Creative in 2018, where we could make whatever we wanted on our own island. They introduced ‘The Block’ at Risky Reels to showcase these creations. Now, players can build their own games with Epic’s tools in UEFN. We build the game together.
Donald Mustard started this concept, and the story that drove conversation about Fortnite Battle Royale, skyrocketing the game into a pop culture phenomenon. This is Chapter 1.
Interview with Donald Mustard, 2018
E3 Coliseum 2018: Worlds Collide Panel
Fortnite Wins Best Ongoing Game Award 2018
Chapter 1 Season 1: First Steps
Where it all began. Day one of Fortnite: Battle Royale was all about surviving. We and 99 other players were dropped from a Battle Bus onto The Island, where we’d collect loot and shield, stay out of The Storm, and battle to become the last one standing. These were our origins.
We got used to learning from experience, as once eliminated, we simply respawned for the next fight. We all had the chance to win the prestigious Victory Royale – but there were plenty of times we didn’t stick the landing, too.
Season 1 had a bunch of classic characters – like Renegade Raider, a scavenger who accessorised her outfit with The Island’s junk. The essence of Fortnite nostalgia has always been our basic beginnings.
Chapter 1 Season 2: Go Full Tilt
We deployed our gliders and dropped Tilted Towers in Season 2, which combined retro with modern. The days of the Fort Knights were upon us as they valiantly conquered POIs from lands unknown, while the apartment complexes and offices of Tilted became a magnet for all sorts of danger.
Chapter 1 Season 3: Brace for Impact
Space Explorers landed on The Island in Season 3 – some, your common moon scouts, while others had voyaged further into the unknown depths. The moment that started it all, however, was a mysterious blue object that emerged in the sky, getting closer and closer as the Season went on...
The giant rock turned out to be a meteor on a seriously worrying collision course. Telescopes were propped up on hills so that we could watch the skies. Players cast a foreboding forecast over Tilted, believing it would be wiped out by the meteor. A campsite appeared on top of one of the buildings, complete with signs depicting a UFO and the ominous message, ‘Today Tomorrow’.
Meanwhile, TVs across the map became flooded with emergency broadcasts of a Loot Llama. Dataminers on social media figured out that the static noises from the TVs could be translated through Morse code, and a cryptic message was unveiled: ‘They don’t want us to k-’…
Towards the end of the Season, meteor showers rained from the skies. We all had to brace for impact as the inevitable day drew near.
Chapter 1 Season 4: Prepare for Launch
The meteor landed, and the world would never be the same again.
Directly impacted, Dusty Divot bore the remnants of Dusty Depot and a mysterious government facility that appeared to be investigating something inside the meteor, keeping the truth hidden from prying eyes…
Many locations were transformed into crater sites containing Hop Rocks, gravity-defying meteor fragments. In the aftermath, other factions began to stake their claim on the discovery – a Villain Lair was built by the doom-foreseeing Omen and Fate, who also housed a rocket, while a Hero Mansion was on hand to deal with their nefarious schemes. At the same time, a Detective Agency was built in Retail Row by the hardboiled Sleuth and Gumshoe, while their rival, Noir, set up shop in Tilted Towers – which had only brushed the edge of disaster.
Alongside Dusty Divot’s scientists, most characters in cool tactical gear, such as the Advanced Forces, could be identified as agents of the government, a shadowy organisation known only as ‘They’ from the TVs last Season who seemed to be in control of The Island.
Squad Leader oversaw the manufacturing of super soldiers called Chromium and Diecast – robots painted in the government’s signature yellow, which appeared on all their facilities and vehicles, including a choppa. Also, a mysterious, unopenable hatch appeared in Wailing Woods, seemingly connected... Over the course of the Season, the government’s convoy of cars and trucks would patch up the meteor craters, collect the Hop Rocks within them, and escort them off The Island.
As the Season progressed, a showdown between Omega and Carbide was brewing. They eventually came head-to-head in Tilted Towers alongside a whole cast of superheroes and villains. However, it became clear that it was all a mirror of lies...
Lights, camera, action! Omega versus Carbide was only the climax of a big-budget blockbuster soon to premiere at the new drive-in theatre, Risky Reels. In the aftermath of the meteor’s impact, the craters, secret lairs, and Hero Mansion had captured the imaginations of everyone on The Island and provided the perfect sets for these soon-to-be cinematic superstars! Even the government found it the perfect distraction, placing their robots within the cast to divert the gaze from Dusty Divot.
... Back to reality. Mysterious events were unfolding at the Villain Lair, where the villains had stored stolen meteor fragments and Hop Rocks from one of the government’s convoys for their experiments. Now, however, it seemed they had a new visitor, working on their rocket. This stranger from beyond the unknown had come from the centre of Dusty Divot - where the excavation had been completed, revealing the meteor’s metal hull to be a landing pod containing The Visitor. Who was he? An alien, a superhero from deep space? His intentions were unknown, but after breaking out of the facility and navigating The Island, he began preparing to leave it, retrofitting the villains’ rocket with his own technology. The countdown began…
The Rocket Launch
3, 2, 1... Lift off! The rocket launched, but it was about to change The Island forever...
The Visitor set coordinates and spoke as he cruised the skies: ‘Zero Point oscillator on. Engaging quantum-fuelled accelerator.’ All of a sudden, the rocket started to fall back down to The Island, activating a laser directly on the centre of Tilted Towers. It got faster and faster, siphoning a powerful energy source and diving headfirst for the city - but, just before impact, the rocket’s energy ripped open a rift, and the rocket plunged through it.
The rift closed, and we believed the worst to be over. However, another one soon opened above The Island, with the rocket shooting back out, across the map, and disappearing through another. Then a larger rift formed above the centre of Loot Lake, and the rocket blasted out again. Before disappearing for good, The Visitor created a final tear in the sky – this time, it didn’t close.
The Visitor specialised in rift technology, and he had opened them by harnessing The Island’s energy into the rocket via a Zero Point oscillator. He had visited our Island and left soon after - but now these rifts would spark a series of consequences.
Rifts were energy portals attuned to The Island and its energy and connected to the stars themselves, resembling the shattered wings of a butterfly, but they were also unstable as they tore at the fabric of the universe. The one in the sky was an opening between two distinct dimensions, growing larger and catapulting objects to and from them. The Motel sign, the spinning tomato at Uncle Pete’s Pizza Pit in Tomato Town, and the Durrr Burger head from the restaurant in Greasy Grove all disappeared, while a Wild West stagecoach, a dinosaur skeleton, and a Nordic anchor were dropped onto The Island from beyond.
At the same time, far, far away from Fortnite – in Earth’s Californian Desert – the Durrr Burger appeared, seemingly out of nowhere. A group of government field agents from The Island arrived and blocked off the area to investigate the anomaly.
This was one example of Fortnite’s ARG storytelling - connecting the game to real life to create an interactive and cultural narrative. The agents, who were hired employees of Epic Games, gave out phone numbers to anyone who turned up at the site – which then revealed coordinates corresponding to the Fortnite map, places that would see changes in Season 5. The Visitor’s rift had set our two worlds on a dangerous collision course...
Chapter 1 Season 5: Worlds Collide
The gaming and real worlds collided, changing The Island forever. Chunks of land were rifted in - a Viking ship on the Snobby Shores mountain, above where the anchor appeared last Season, a desert outpost that eclipsed Moisty Mire, featuring a resort where the stagecoach was found – Paradise Palms – and a Dino Park in place of the skeleton, and a lavish country club, Lazy Links. Smaller rifts now peppered The Island, while the one in the sky slowly shrank over the course of the Season...
All sorts of familiar characters found themselves in Fortnite, from medieval samurai to hippies and garage singers, but one in particular embarked on a new journey: a street artist from California, Drift, brought straight from the desert through a rift, and bringing the Durrr Burger back with him.
The burger was now graffitied with a mysterious artefact he owned – a fox mask resonating with rift lightning – making the spot where they landed the perfect start for a road trip. Introducing Brite Bomber, Rex, and Cuddle Team Leader – Drift’s new friends. Over the next eleven weeks, the squad would explore the new parts of The Island together, while Drift channelled the ancient powers of his mask to protect them. He and Brite Bomber quickly became The Island’s favourite ship.
In Week 6, they attended Risky Reels’ grand reopening night, screening the premiere of Season 4’s blockbuster – ‘Prepare For Collision’. Two other parts of The Island that had been impacted by the meteor also saw brand-new revamps – the central building in Tilted Towers, now a new thrift store, and the Dusty Depot warehouses transformed into Dusty Diner, with a tourist spot overlooking the divot to mark a historic moment in Fortnite’s history.
The following week, the road trip’s visit to the Motel was disturbed by a rift, with three Enforcers pulling back in the Motel’s sign. These agents of the government were on a mission to restore balance and order.
The following week, Tomato Town’s mascot and restaurateur, Tomatohead, returned – but they brought with them a whole tomato-worshiping temple from the other side of the rift.
As the rift in the sky got smaller and smaller, a darkness corrupted it, turning the blue to purple. Then, lightning strikes from the rift started hitting a cacti circle in the desert, knocking them down one by one until the final strike formed a giant purple Cube, made of the same power as The Storm, and closed the rift for good.
The Cube knocked back anyone who came too close and glowed all over with mysterious glyphs. The road trip couldn’t make sense of them, but upon touching The Cube, Brite Bomber saw a dark reflection staring back at her, foreshadowing a twisted version of herself, the Dark Bomber, who would step out of The Cube’s shadow next Season...
The Cube began rolling around The Island and printing its runes into the ground. Then it made its way to Loot Lake – not before destroying the newly-erected building in Tilted – and melted into the water, transforming it into the same material as The Cube’s surface, and just as bouncy. Now, we waited...
Chapter 1 Season 6: Darkness Rises
Darkness rose in Season 6. Loot Lake’s central island lifted off the ground and now floated above a giant vortex left in the centre, emitting a powerful glow. The Cube, having harnessed whatever power lay below, was now on the underside of this Floating Island.
The areas around the runes it had printed at the end of last Season became corrupted, and as Season 6 progressed, The Cube visited each one and absorbed their magic. As it did, The Cube got stronger and grew fragments inside the Floating Island.
Meanwhile, Season 6’s Hunting Party story began with Calamity, a Wild West ranch girl carrying the essence of the afterlife. When her friend, Giddy-Up, was ambushed by the werewolves of Wailing Woods, the skilled hunter Fable showed up and divided the pack.
However, the hunter became the hunted when, on her journey through a Haunted Castle, Fable was ambushed by Dusk, a vampire of the Nite Coven. This time, Calamity and Deadfire, an undead cowboy, turned up and culled the herd of monsters. But as the sun went down, darkness rose at the newly-named Leaky Lake… The Cube had returned above the vortex, having amassed enough energy to conquer the power that lay below it. Now, it was opening a portal in the sky, recalling a legion.
Fortnitemares began with the Floating Island exploding into floating chunks, unleashing The Storm’s power onto The Island. In Fortnite’s other mode, Save the World, The Storm had been a manifestation of The Cube itself. Now, the fragments that had grown inside it were scattered across the map, spawning Cube Monsters. More portals opened and created smaller fragments, which spawned even more creatures in an effort to take over The Island. Darkness had descended...
As the monsters invaded, the Hunting Party struck back – Calamity now a fearsome gunslinger fighting for retribution. But, for every one that went down, two more took its place... Just as they were on the verge of despair, the tide turned: the powerful light from the vortex began to drain The Cube’s power, causing it to crack. As the sun rose, darkness fell...
Weakened to a hollow shell, The Cube erupted. The cataclysm warped us into a mysterious Nexus called The In-Between, a circuitry of splines, orbs, and stars, all connected to the glow in the centre. The shattered wings of a rift came together into a sentient butterfly and settled on our fingers, a metaphor for the butterfly effect that had begun Fortnite’s story – one meteor strike, a cataclysmic rift, and a Cube of darkness... When the butterfly opened its wings, it pulled us back through a rift to The Island.
The vortex’s light had now transformed Leaky Lake into a place for remembrance, where the fragments of The Cube stood powerless, and even flowers and rainbows could bloom. It was the end of the beginning...
As the past was left behind, life on The Island went on. The Tilted Towers building began repairs again, while the hedge maze in Wailing Woods was revealed to be covering up the government’s secret underground facility. Inside, they were experimenting on a small, permanent rift. They created four new ones, although they were more stable than normal rifts and were connected to cabins dotted around Wailing Woods, allowing transportation across each – their first step in replicating The Visitor’s technology.
Meanwhile, a bug outbreak caused the Durrr Burger restaurant in Greasy Grove to close. It became clear that foul play was involved when Pizza Pit’s food truck stole the spotlight. This kick-started the Food Fight between the two entrees, with their trucks travelling The Island in deep-fried competition.
The calm after the storm did not last, and a new one was gathering in the form of an ice cloud, drawing nearer from the ocean. As winter approached, a red and white parachute landed at Flush Factory. It belonged to A.I.M., a half-frozen robot on a secret recon mission, scanning The Island for targets...
Soon, a castle could be seen lit up in the fog, sitting on top of what turned out to be a giant iceberg coming our way...
Chapter 1 Season 7: You Better Watch Out
Season 7 started with The Iceberg smashing into The Island and an attack from an expedition led by Sgt. Winter. The group was made up of A.I.M.s, who helped deliver presents for Winterfest, their X-4 Stormwing planes, Zenith - deadly at high elevations - and Lynx, a clever designer with her own cat suit made from advanced tech. They had been exploring The Iceberg when it took an unexpected course south - now, they had a whole new Island to explore...
As they set up their outposts all over The Island, other POIs also saw changes. Durrr Burger was forced to make a new home in Retail Row, as Greasy Grove was completely frozen over by The Iceberg. Pizza Pit also parked its food truck there and began spying on Durrr Burger’s new restaurant. The Food Fight was far from over...
Meanwhile, a group of rocks formed a lonely man near Wailing Woods. Over the course of the Season, a rock lady formed across the way near Lonely Lodge, and they’d wave at each other from their hilltops. It was the cutest love story since Brite Bomber and Drift.
Separated from whatever world it had come from, The Iceberg began to thaw and reveal a castle at Polar Peak that held many secrets. There was the Infinity Blade, a sword of great power crossing over from Epic Games’ Infinity Blade saga, then a dungeon housing unhatched dragon eggs. A second hatch, like the one in Wailing Woods, was found newly-built under the snow… Would we ever get an answer to where they led?
Inside Polar Peak’s castle was also a war room with a revealing round table. Each of the five chairs at the table was inscribed with a different symbol, and one of them was overturned – the symbol of fire. Another of the symbols was decorated all over the castle’s flags and was the mark of The Ice Kingdom. As a throne room emerged from under the ice, The Ice King awoke...
The Ice King had sent his kingdom into an eternal, frozen slumber, but the warmth of The Island had disturbed it. Now, he only had one mission – to restore order. He formed an icy sphere above Polar Peak and started conjuring a spell inside it, using a small shard of The Cube. TVs around The Island were warning us again – this time of freezing temperatures.
The Ice King summoned the ice storm, blanketing The Island in snow and fog to keep everything still. Ice Shards scattered across the map, similar to the Cube Fragments last Season, spitting out icy versions of the Cube Monsters, now serving as the Ice Legion. The Ice Queen also thawed from The Ice King’s slumber and instilled her wrath on The Island.
However, it was too late. Nothing could stop the ice from thawing, and a dangerous prisoner was melting out of his chains in the dungeon. His hand bore the same flame as the overturned chair at the round table... Soon enough, The Prisoner escaped, taking the dragon eggs with him.
The enemy that The Ice King had tried to keep locked in his dungeon was now roaming free, with only one mission – to restore balance. As he removed the many padlocks keeping him contained and reinvigorated himself by the warmth of a campfire, the ice across The Island began to thaw. The Ice King recalled his legion as The Prisoner awakened his true form at Wailing Woods in a circle of torches, igniting his fire.
As the Season drew to a close, earthquakes began splitting The Island’s terrain. The Tilted Towers building that had been destroyed by The Cube, rebuilt into modern offices, once again did not survive. The epicentre of the earthquakes was Wailing Woods – and now ash was rising...
Chapter 1 Season 8: X Marks the Spot
Season 8 arrived, and The Prisoner created a volcano to replace Wailing Woods, transforming the northeast part of The Island into a tropical jungle and unearthing an ancient temple from below, Sunny Steps. He ruled over his new kingdom from within The Volcano’s lair, defended by the hatchlings of the eggs he stole – Hybrids belonging to a ninja-dragon Brood – and his right hand, Ruin, whose name served him well. The cursed spirit captain, Blackheart, set plunder on our Isle of Treasure, sailing his boat into Lazy Lagoon, created by the earthquakes, and setting up Pirate Camps all over The Island.
Pirates, ninjas, and a ship-load of new fighters explored The Island and tussled over treasure – including gold-striker Sidewinder, the luxurious Luxe, and the determined Master Key. A ripening ritual took place at The Volcano with Peely, a sentient banana from the bananahood. Later in the Season at Bao Bros, Peely would meet Jonesy, a classic Fortnite character and one of the ‘Default’ outfits of the game.
Meanwhile, Sgt. Winter’s expedition set up new outposts in the jungle, Durrr Burger and Pizza Pit expanded their restaurants in Retail Row, and the Vikings descended their ship to take over Snobby Shores. The rock man and lady had been destroyed by the emergence of The Volcano, but over the course of the Season, they’d reform and find each other again across The Volcano’s lava. The central Tilted Towers building was also restored (again), this time into the offices of No Sweat Insurance, featuring a historical diorama of The Island’s events in the entrance lobby. Whatever disaster would strike The Island next, No Sweat promised to keep us covered. Their advice? Don’t sweat it.
While all this was going on, the government began searching for a treasure of their own… Their choppa was now flying over The Island’s highest peaks, keeping watch with a telescope. They then deployed excavators to dig up parts of The Island in their quest.
The dig sites released pressure from The Volcano, unearthing Volcanic Vents and lava. Pleasant and Retail responded by building disaster bunkers - preparing for the worst. The sites also uncovered lost secrets – the dinosaur bones and Moai statues from The Visitor’s rift, and a metal door near Loot Lake that led to a trove of hidden gold, but was also a part of a much bigger structure under the ground. More excavators surrounded the lake, convinced that they had found where X marked the spot.
The lake was dried up and dug out, and a breakthrough was made. The X was a metal gateway covering the centre of the lake, where The Cube’s vortex had once been. Loot Lake had always been central to the mysteries of The Island, and now the truth was being unearthed...
The government set up a research facility and ranger towers around the discovery as runic holograms started to appear, corresponding to floating structures that emerged around The Island. To move these keys into the gateway, players had to interact with them through familiar elements of the gameplay. The first had to be pickaxed - coming close to destroying No Sweat Insurance on its way - the second was hit simultaneously with three lasers, the third was activated with our locker emotes, the fourth through matching coloured tiles, and the fifth rune saw us sacrificing our building materials – Wood, Stone, and Metal – into The Volcano’s fire. As each rune was placed into the gateway, the pressure of The Volcano grew, and a fiery cloud began to cover the sky...
More bunkers were built around The Island, while monitors at Loot Lake started broadcasting footage from below the gateway - weapons and items that had been lost from The Island, including the Drum Gun and the Infinity Blade, stored into a secret Vault - what the government had been searching for all along.
The Unvaulting
The gateway opened, and light broke through. We jumped into the vortex and floated into the very centre of The In-Between – a timeless Vault, built out of radiant blocks and an eternal kaleidoscope sky. Before us were six transparent pillars containing the six weapons and items that we had seen on the monitors. Before them was a giant orb, contained in the ground and the source of the lake’s powerful light. In front of the orb was a desk with a radio playing a nostalgic tune, as well as a helmet seemingly belonging to whoever guarded this place...
We chose as one and made our pick, smashing the pillar that contained the Drum Gun into the wings of a butterfly. Our work done, we rose out of The In-Between and above Loot Lake – just as The Volcano was erupting.
The Volcano spurted bursts of lava across The Island – destroying the shopping centre of Retail Row, cracking the bottom of Polar Peak, and firing molten rocks at Tilted Towers that exploded all over the city, reducing every building to rubble and ashes – save for the only building that was ironically covered from the disaster, No Sweat Insurance. Disaster had struck, but the key to the Future lay in the secrets of The Vault...
Chapter 1 Season 9: The Future Is Yours
As The Volcano was erupting, best friends Peely and Jonesy found safety in a disaster bunker, complete with an arcade, gym, and disco lights. Shielded from the outside world, the two made the most of their friendship, until Jonesy realised there was no food to sustain them... Except one ripe banana...
Meanwhile, Neo Tilted was rebuilt from the ashes, a utopia of holograms, blimps, and vibrant attractions including the new-and-improved Durrr Burger, Peely’s Banana Stand, a holo-clock tower, and a statue of a heroic woman, holding the helmet from The Vault...
On the other side of The Island, Retail Row had been rebuilt into the Mega Mall, home to Scoop’s Ahoy and Pizza Pit. The Volcano overhead had been destroyed and was now the epicentre of the government’s operations, Pressure Plant.
Connecting the new locations was the Slipstream, a wind-powered transportation system, while hovering high above The Island were sky platforms. This new era was running on the powerful energy provided by a cable from Loot Lake’s Vault to Neo Tilted...
It was a while before Sentinel pried open the bunker doors and let Bunker Jonesy out into the bright lights of Neo Tilted. He had shrunken into paranoia, with a beard drooping to his feet, his clothes in tatters, and paint splattered all over his arms, his survival resting on a single banana smoothie. Nevertheless, Peely remained alive in his new, blended form!
The rock man and lady had survived The Volcano and now lived at a farm near Lonely Lodge with their child. One day, the child went exploring in the woods and nearly fell off the edge of a cliff, when a stone dog pulled him up to safety. From that moment, he became part of the family!
While we were hard at work gathering computer chips around The Island – Fortbytes that would decrypt a secret recording – Polar Peak’s meltdown continued. A giant frozen eye appeared through the ice – which then collapsed. Another prisoner escaped, this time a gigantic creature. It left a trail of footprints leading to the ocean, where he began to roam.
The monster circled The Island, growing hungrier as it attacked buildings in Snobby Shores and Pleasant Park. He eventually zeroed in on the cable at Loot Lake, disappearing back into the waters to plan how to consume the rest of its energy...
Meanwhile, the government formed a plan of their own. Pressure Plant was transformed into a factory control centre where a giant robot was being built by drones, agents, and troopers to combat the creature. The hero of Neo Tilted’s statue revealed herself as she worked with the government - Singularity, the sole protector of The Vault and its mysterious orb. She had used its power to save The Island and become its hero – now, she oversaw the government’s construction of a Mech that would save it again. Public service announcement holograms appeared in all the new locations, encouraging a collective effort to build our Defence System...
The Mecha was built and painted as the legends of Fortnite – Cuddle Team Leader for his head and torso, Rex and Drift for his arms, and the rivals Tomatohead and Beef Boss for his legs and feet. Together, Mecha Team Leader and Singularity would defend The Island, no matter the cost.
The Fortbytes pieced together a recording taken from when Jonesy had been in the bunker. He was hastily scribbling The Island’s history on its walls, but he was also painting events that hadn’t happened yet – the monster’s eye and footprints and the construction of the Mecha that he had seen in visions from drinking Peely’s smoothie – and surrounding each drawing were hundreds of zeros. As the camera was about to die, he stepped back and revealed what he had painted in the centre of it all, what everything had been leading to – The Final Showdown between the Mecha and the monster. He had tried to warn us...
The Final Showdown
The Mecha was ready to fight. The Devourer was ready to destroy.
We took to the skies with emergency jetpacks and landed on sky platforms as the monster rose from the ocean. As it started attacking the gateway to The Vault, the Mecha rose from The Volcano and fired a barrage of missiles. The Devourer fought back with a beam of deadly energy that ripped through the Mecha’s torso. Unfaltering, the Mecha then ran and tackled The Devourer into the ocean...
She rose, seemingly victorious, and the fight seemed to be over. But then The Devourer hurtled back out of the waters and landed on the Mecha’s back, chewing off her jetpack and one of her arms, which landed in the ocean. The Mecha was able to knock the monster off, but weakened, she collapsed into Loot Lake. As a last resort, she punched through the gateway and pulled out the orb from The Vault – the energy source The Devourer was hungry for and the one that fuelled The Island’s utopia – turbocharging her remaining arm before setting the orb back above the lake.
Recharged, the Mecha punched The Devourer in the face, sending him flying towards Salty Springs. She then lifted the statue of Singularity in Neo Tilted, revealing it to be the hilt of a giant sword, which she then activated with the energy from her arm. The Mecha rose, The Devourer lunged, and the sword was brought crushing through the monster’s skull. The Devourer’s remains withered away, leaving behind only a skeleton. Next Season, the land around it would turn pink and bloom flowers as a result of the sword’s energy, similar to how it created the memorial at Loot Lake when The Cube exploded. The Mecha performed a celebratory, one-armed Floss before saluting and lifting off into the sky, becoming a distant star.
Now, the orb above Loot Lake and the centre of its mysteries - The Zero Point - was exposed. We had heard this name before - The Visitor’s oscillator had harnessed its power to open rifts, which derived from The Zero Point itself. It was also the power source that The Cube had sought in Season 6, after having found The Island from the rift of its energy. The Zero Point had turned the tide of battle by overwhelming The Cube instead, and flooding The Island with light from its home in The In-Between.
Now, though, it was unstable, and, as a result, time was twisting. Singularity had been the first and the last to protect it inside The Vault. It could no longer be contained...
Chapter 1 Season X: Out of Time
The Zero Point was exploding. There were many versions of Jonesy on the Island, but the original was warped into an explosion of time, witnessing The Island’s history in a single moment – the rocket, The Cube, The Volcano, all happening at once. Even Peely was there, returned from being a smoothie. He gave Jonesy a warning glance, but Jonesy didn’t realise what it meant - he was not the version of Jonesy who had been responsible for Peely’s misfortune, after all.
Suddenly, Jonesy started hurtling back to The Island again, landing at... Dusty Depot! The meteor was suspended above it, just before impact. The Zero Point explosion had paused, and The Island was out of time...
Time was broken, and so was The Zero Point – fractured, with red and black streaks emitting out of it. The surrounding lake was stuck, frozen inside the blast, now a Rift Zone suspended in low gravity - with all of its matter about to fall into a singularity. The world was destabilizing, as alternate dimensions collided with The Island: some locations weren’t the same as they once had been, while time-twisted takes on our favourite characters, such as Drift, now Catalyst, arrived from The Zero Point. The warehouses at Dusty Depot had switched colours, and the meteor above it was also different – for one, the landing pod inside was open...
The government had all but disappeared, but in their absence remannts of them attempted to control The Island’s volatile state - two-person mech vehicles known as the B.R.U.T.E.s. Meanwhile, The Visitor had returned and set up shop at Dusty Depot, converting it into a lab where he built Rift Beacons.
Rift Beacons harnessed the energy of The Zero Point to open rifts to other worlds, but The Zero Point’s instability created more Rift Zones that turned surrounding locations into time-twisted, alternate-reality versions. Neo Tilted, for example, became Tilted Town, a Wild West settlement where building was prohibited - and later it turned into a version of Gotham City. Another Rift Zone turned Mega Mall back into Retail Row, but with the cost of increased danger – bargain-crazed Cube Fiends who wanted the shopping centre all to themselves. Alternate versions of Tomatohead and Beef Boss - the rotten and rugged Hothouse and Gutbomb - geared up and starved off the new threat to their town.
Not all Rift Beacons were successful. One at the Rec Center malfunctioned and exploded, leaving a giant crater of Glitched Consumables. Another returned the Floating Island (although the Loot Lake house was replaced by the Motel with the Durrr Burger on top)!
A Rift Beacon at Paradise Palms created Moisty Palms, a mix of Paradise and Moisty Mire, where you could now disguise yourself as a prop, while another brought back Greasy Grove, but Durrr Burger was swapped with Tacos. Periodically, Spicy Tacos would rain from the sky, causing people to dance! Another one of The Leftovers joining Hothouse and Gutbomb was Guaco, Greasy Grove’s new restaurateur!
Finally, a Rift Zone brought back the ruined neighborhood near Pleasant Park, but now it was the destination for shooting stars that crushed into powerful weapons...
The Visitor salvaged pieces of the B.R.U.T.E.s to make his new armour, before transmitting a virus into the remaining mechs and causing them to explode on landing, sending a clear message to their creators. However, as he recorded tapes to explain his mission, it became clear that it wasn’t The Visitor after all – instead, another one of The Seven, named The Scientist.
The Scientist made the tapes for himself as a failsafe in case he forgot inside The Island’s time loop. This was the matches of Battle Royale that we played, over and over again – a constant cycle of death and rebirth. The characters on The Island were stuck inside The Loop, but The Seven were immune to its effects – which included memory wiping and removing the ability to talk. They were The Visitor, The Scientist, The Paradigm, whose allegiance was currently unknown, and four others who remained a mystery for now.
‘They’ - the only name known for the mysterious organisation that disguised themselves as our government - had asked The Seven to contain The Zero Point following its meltdown. The Seven realised this had to be done, although there were risks that would later become apparent. However, if they didn’t, they would lose ‘The Bridge’ forever - and, for whatever reason, they couldn’t afford that.
The Scientist, having arrived on The Island and witnessing first-hand the interdimensional chaos brought about by The Zero Point’s explosion, noted that no one seemed to have speculated how The Island was formed in the first place – collisions of interdimensional matter that, instead of pushing apart, resolved around The Zero Point. This was called Pinching.
The Scientist then explained his mission. The Rift Beacons were built to make rifts in the sky – arrival points for the rest of The Seven later – but The Scientist had needed time to build them. The Seven theorised that, by escaping The Loop at the exact moment The Storm reset, the singularity created by The Zero Point’s explosion would pause. The Scientist succeeded and was sent outside The Loop - still on the same Island, but on an extra plane of reality - free of The Storm, the battles, and everyone else. However, he hadn’t realised that the only way to trigger the beacons was from back within The Loop - because this version of The Island was hidden, not accessible to anyone without breaking through The Loop first. Thus, The Scientist had to record these tapes to remember what to do in the event he became muted – and exactly when to activate the beacons, to synchronize The Seven’s arrival.
The Scientist finished his recordings by warning that, if They were correct, it would be The End… The whole Island watched as he enacted the final part of his plan. The lab at Dusty Depot became a construction facility... for rebuilding the rocket...
The End
We were out of time.
The Scientist launched the rocket from Dusty Depot and opened a rift in the sky, like history repeating itself. As he did, the other six rockets converged on The Island from their rifts. They circled the map and then all powered through a singular rift. Another opened behind the meteor’s smoke trail, and the rockets, one by one, started flying out of it and into a rift directly in front of the meteor. The rockets got faster and faster, and the energy of the rift brought the meteor back to time, pulling it into the rift and disappearing.
All was quiet, but then a new rift opened in the sky. A singular rocket flew down and, as it once did on Tilted Towers, activated a laser on The Zero Point. The rocket dived headfirst into it, and a shockwave sent everyone out of The Island, as The Zero Point, no longer frozen, continued to explode. The meteor fell out of the rift, surrounded by the six other rockets, slowly falling to The Zero Point. As the meteor began to break through the explosion bubble, the other rockets flew through rifts to safety.
The meteor collided with The Zero Point, creating a huge explosion that squeezed all the matter of The Island - players, trees, tomatoes, rocks, and even the Battle Bus - into the singularity, folding everything into a black hole. Our universe was gone.
Occasionally, messages from The Scientist leaked through the darkness, from wherever he and The Seven were… ‘I was not alone. Others are outside The Loop. This was not calculated. The Nothing is now inevitable.’
Was this The End of Fortnite?
