Fortnite timeline: 7 season-ending events ranked
The best of the best.
What's your favorite Fortnite event?
Fortnite pulled off one of its most epic events this week, with more than 1.6 million people watching the end of its tenth season unfold on Twitch. As part of "The End" event, the island was sucked into darkness and players were left watching a livestream of a black hole. After being offline for roughly 40 hours, the battle royale game returned Tuesday as Fortnite Chapter 2, featuring a whole new map and a bunch of fresh features.
This was Fortnite's seventh major in-game event since developer Epic Games started putting on a grand finale to cap off each season last June. Fortnite's live events give players a unique experience that no other video game has yet to reproduce. For a few minutes, millions of players share the same experience and come away with big changes to the popular video game. While each event is special, only one can be the best.
Here's my countdown of the best Fortnite events.
Honorable Mention - The Comet
Although it didn't have an end event, Fortnite season 3 was the first time Epic incorporated a narrative into the battle royale game. A comet showed up in the sky about halfway through the season, leaving players confused by its sudden appearance. Soon, clues began popping up, including Morse code messages and emergency test patterns in TVs on the island. Later on, meteors began falling during matches causing destruction to buildings and player-made structures.
The storyline culminated with a giant meteor crashing into Dusty Depot, which was renamed to Dusty Divot. This kickstarted all the events following it, including the black hole.
7. Season 7 - Ice Storm
The Ice Storm event was another experiment by Epic to make the events more cinematic. However, there was no real punch to this event.
Season 7 was all about snow, which made sense considering it started in December 2018. The southwest part of the island was covered in snow, and Epic added a variety of costumes, items and other in-game content to go with the holiday season. One snow-covered area, Polar Peak, started to melt as the season went on and eventually revealed a castle. Soon a sphere of ice appeared above it, and inside was the Snow King. He broke free of the sphere and created a giant spiritual version of himself. He then caused a storm that covered the island in ice and released waves of zombies.
Unfortunately, there wasn't much to the Ice Storm event, and it lasted only a couple of minutes. The snow stuck around for a few weeks but was eventually gone along with the zombies. The seasonal aspect was interesting but didn't have the same impact as other events.
6. Season 8 - The Volcano Eruption
To end its eighth season, Epic offered up two events, but neither was that great.
As part of season 8, Epic let players decided what weapons to "unvault." Sometimes weapons and equipment get removed from the game, often because Epic deems them too powerful for matches. This is known as vaulting. It just so happened that a vault containing some of these previously removed weapons was found in Loot Lake. During the season, players worked together to open the vault. At the same time, a new volcano on the island was becoming more active.
During the season 8 end event, players were transported inside the vault and attacked pillars representing each of the vaulted weapons. The weapon that was attacked the most, the Drum Gun, was officially unvaulted. Players were then transported high above the island and got to watch the volcano erupt. It shot out lava balls, destroying certain parts of the island.
While the event allowed for player participation, the result was the return of a powerful weapon that some weren't eager to see again. Combine that with a less than spectacular volcano eruption, and the event ending season 8 was nothing to write home about.
5. Season 6 - The Butterfly Event
Kevin -- a large purple cube that appeared on the island in season 5 -- seemed to have disappeared in season 6, but not really. The purple cube reappeared and was part of an incredibly cinematic event.
Early on in season 6, Kevin rose out of Loot Lake taking an island with it. The now floating island made its way across the map, flying high above everything else and offering loot for players who landed there. The cube eventually made its way back to Loot Lake where it began to spin in air. It spun faster and faster and eventually exploded into a bright white light transporting players to a mysterious dimension called the In-Between. A butterfly then appeared and the player's avatar touches it, causing another explosion of white light. Players were then transported back to the island as if nothing had happened.
The Butterly Event was Epic's first foray into making these Fortnite live events a real experience by making players part of the event itself. Previous events required players to be at a certain spot on the map to see what was happening, but Epic made sure everyone was part of the action this time around.
4. Season 5 - The Crack Closure (aka The Kevin Event)
The giant crack, or rift, in the sky left from season 4 raised many questions. Players' confusion increased dramatically midway through season 5 when the crack disappeared and a large purple cube appeared in Paradise Palms. That cube became known by the community as Kevin.
Kevin was strange. It was located in the new Paradise Palms location of the island and made of a bouncy material that knocked away players who came in contact. Then it started moving. It would move one rotation every one hour and 43 minutes. Players eventually figured out Kevin was heading to Loot Lake. When it reached the lake, Kevin began to merge with the water, creating a bouncy, purple surface that players run across.
While the Kevin event wasn't the most dramatic, it did build tension as this clearly viewable object traveled across the island. Payers could check in on its progress on a daily basis.
3. Season 10 - The End
Fortnite's latest event could be among the boldest moves ever made by a game company. The world of Fortnite got sucked into a black hole during the season 10 end event, and the game stayed offline for about 40 hours.
During season 10, players saw a large rocket being built and new rifts showed up, transforming certain parts of the island. These "rift zones" included a frontier town, a Borderlands-themed location and even Gotham City. On Sunday, the now-completed rocket launched along with several smaller rockets. The rockets gathered at a meteor that had been suspended above Dusty Depot for all of season 10 -- there was a lot going on this season -- opening up a new rift. The meteor disappeared into the rift and reemerged right above Loot Lake. It landed with a tremendous impact that sucked in the entire Fortnite universe leaving only a black hole. For more than a day, there was no game to play, just the black hole.
As an event, The End was a proper ending to the first chapter of Fortnite.
2. Season 4 - Rocket Launch
The first major Fortnite end event needs recognition for helping to set the stage for many of the events to follow. Like season 3, Epic began dropping clues of something big throughout season 4. Then on June 30, 2018, a rocket launched, changing everything.
Season 4's theme was heroes and villains. Players could obtain superhero outfits in-game, and a villain was formerly introduced: The Visitor. At the end of the season, The Visitor launched a rocket into the sky causing what appeared to a crack.
It wasn't the flashiest event, but it was the first to bring all players together to watch a spectacle in the game at the same time.
1. Season 9 - The Final Showdown
As amazing as the black hole event was, the fight between the Polar Peak monster and a giant mech is simply hard to beat. A monster called Cattus -- a name adopted by the community after being spotted in Epic game files -- escaped from its frosty prison in Polar Peak and ventured into the waters surrounding the island. To combat this monster, a giant mech was built at Pressure Plant. It was naturally dubbed Doggus by fans.
During The Final Showdown, Cattus and Doggus fought like, well, cats and dogs. The fight was like something from an episode of Voltron or Might Morphin' Power Rangers. It ended with the giant mech running its sword into the monster's head leaving a giant skeleton for players to explore.
What made the event so great was that it was a spectacle. It was filled with drama and felt like the final fight of an action film -- condensed into five minutes.
Can Fortnite top these events in Chapter 2? Players will have to wait and see. Let me know what your favorite Fortnite event was in the comments.
