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Fortnite season 5 stars Kratos, The Mandalorian, Baby Yoda and hunters from other realities

It's time to hunt.

Eli Blumenthal Senior Editor
Eli Blumenthal is a senior editor at CNET with a particular focus on covering the latest in the ever-changing worlds of telecom, streaming and sports. He previously worked as a technology reporter at USA Today.
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Expertise Video Games, Misinformation, Conspiracy Theories, Cryptocurrency, NFTs, Movies, TV, Economy, Stocks
Eli Blumenthal
Oscar Gonzalez
4 min read
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Prepare to collect some bounties. 

Epic Games

Fortnite's  season 5 started Wednesday after a spectacular event to end its fourth season. Developer Epic Games took down the popular battle royale game for part of Tuesday and players waited to see what's next for Fortnite.  

Zero Point is the title for Fortnite season 5 and features a cast of hunters from different realities. The star of the season is The Mandalorian from the Disney Plus series along with Baby Yoda. Another surprise for the fifth season was the inclusion of Kratos from the God of War series. Epic added the new skin to the Fortnite Item Shop on Thursday for 1,500 V-Bucks, or approximately $15. 

Along with the new characters, players will have new areas of the map to explore, weapons to use and more content to unlock throughout the season. 

When does Season 5 start? 

Fortnite season 5 started Dec. 2 at midnight ET (9 p.m. PT), but according to Epic, servers will be down for updating until 4 a.m. ET (1 a.m. PT). 

What is season 5's theme?

Zero Point centers on Agent Jones, who made an appearance at the end of the Nexus War event. He gathered a group of hunters from different realities and they're making sure no one escapes the Loop. New points of interest on the season 5 map such as Hunter's Haven and Colossal Coliseum will pit players against one another to see who survives. 

Fortnite season 5 map

Here's what the island will look like in season 5. 

Epic Games

Season 5 will introduce new quests and bounties with players receiving bars as their rewards, which can be redeemed for new weapons and abilities. There's also a new Battle Pass that unlocks unique skins such as Mancake the fighting flapjack, Mave the shapeshifter and of course, The Mandalorian with Baby Yoda. 

The official PlayStation Twitter account teased Kratos' addition to the game Wednesday with a snippet of audio from Agent Jones, who is the character in charge of stabilizing the Zero Point. He says the next target was someone who killed gods with his bare hands. 

The confirmation came via the PlayStation Store, which showed an ad for Kratos coming to Fortnite. The God of War skin showed up in the game's Item Shop on Thursday for purchase. 

What happened during the Nexus War event? 

The event started a little after 4 p.m. ET (1 p.m. PT) Tuesday. Fortnite players found themselves on a S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier with the cosmic being Galactus looming on the horizon. 

The giant slowly walked closer to the island and then swatted away the Helicarrier like a bug. Galactus, known for devouring planets, has his goal set on the Zero Point, which is the island's secret energy orb responsible for all the reality-hopping events that occur on the island. 

As players floated in front of Galactus, in comes Iron Man with a plan on how to stop the cosmic being. He decked out a Battle Bus for each player with lasers and bombs. The goal is to drive the bus into Galactus' giant mouth, but in your way are waves of drones . Luckily, Thor also intervened, giving your bus a detour into a trench similar to the one Luke Skywalker flew through in A New Hope. This is where AC/DC's Demon Fire from their new album, Power Up, can be heard in the background. More drones began to surround the bus and from nowhere comes Wolverine who uses his adamantium claws to destroy a wall of robots in your way. You're given the word from Iron Man to abandon the bus as you watch Galactus swallow, explode in green light and get forced back into his reality. 

The final scene shows a suit-wearing Jonesy, one of the default characters in Fortnite, waking up in an office. This seemingly is related to the season 3 ending event where some organization is behind all the crazy things happening on the island and is the connecting storyline in the last four seasons.

According to Epic, 15.3 million participated in the event while 3.4 million watched on YouTube and Twitch. 

Can I play the event on my iPhone or iPad? 

Due to an ongoing legal dispute between Epic Games and Apple, the game has been pulled from Apple's App Store. This means that even those who already have Fortnite installed on their iPhones or iPads won't be able to partake in this event. 

Epic Games is in a similar dispute with Google on Android that has led to Fortnite being pulled from the Google Play Store, but there are ways to still download the game without using Google's store

See also: Sony PS5 vs. Microsoft Xbox Series X: The best new game console for holiday 2020

Watch this: Epic vs. Apple lawsuit heads to trial in 2021