Fortnite season 11: What is Chapter 2, what has changed in patch note update and what was the black hole?
The black hole that replaced the game has some strange Easter eggs and a series of mystery numbers – but nothing that adds up to a clue
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Your support makes all the difference.Fortnite, after being hit by an asteroid, has disappeared and been replaced by a huge black hole.
The game is completely unplayable at the moment, with players unable to start a game and instead simply having to view that black hole as it swirls around.
The events mark the end of Fortnite's Season 10, and presumably the start of Season 11. But they are wrapped in mystery, amid feverish speculation about what will happen next.
Fortnite Season 11/Chapter 2 is now out. For everything you need to know, click here.
What happened?
Fortnite is destroyed – and in its place is just a big black hole.
Developers Epic Games had long teased an event called "The End", which would come on 13 October. It was supplemented by a big countdown clock in the game, which suggested that something big would happen when it reached zero.
And it did. Players that were inside the game saw a flurry of falling asteroids, which destroyed the game – they then fell into a black hole, which replaced the entire universe of the game.
Now, that's all players can see if they try and play. And it's all Epic will say about it, too, since it deleted its social channels and replaced them with a live stream of the black hole.
Can I play Fortnite now?
No. Anyone trying to will be greeted with the black hole.
There is, seemingly, no way around this – no trick to get back into Season 10 or play an older version of the game. Since the battle royale part of the game (and the story mode, too) rely on network features, Epic is able to change or destroy the game whenever it wants and there is no way for players to stop it happening.
Fortnite does include a minigame, however, if you wish to do something in the game. If you open up the black hole and do the Konami Code, a minigame will pop up – though it isn't anything like Fortnite.
There are of course a variety of other battle royale games in which you can get your fix – and some of them, like Apex Legends, are free. So those could be a good way to get your fix while you wait.
But ultimately there is no real way around the outage. Fortnite is down until Epic makes it come back.
Is Fortnite going to come back?
It is almost certainly going to come back. There are a variety of clues, but the ultimate evidence is outside the game: Epic makes vast amounts of money from Fortnite, and it would be very unusual for developers to throw it all away.
That means that after all of this will presumably come Season 11, or whatever Epic chooses to name the next installment of the game.
But we don't know when, how, or with what changes. It may come back in an entirely different form – perhaps, for instance, with a completely different map.
Are there any clues about what will happen next?
Epic has started to offer hints. But it's not clear what exactly they mean, or whether they mean anything at all.
The most meaningful one is the fact that, occasionally, numbers come out of the black hole.
Players found that the first of those numbers, when put into Google Maps, sent players to a huge gathering of crustaceans on a beach – that is, a crab rave, just like the meme. That suggests the numbers could be a largely meaningless joke meant to frustrate users.
New numbers have also started coming out: in addition to the crab numbers (11, 146, 15, and 62), the game is also spewing forth others (87, 14, 106, 2, and 150). The significance of those – whether they are more co-ordinates, or if all of the numbers will eventually form into one big clue – is still a mystery.
An interesting discussion on Tfue's stream at the moment: will there be downtime when the update is actually released? Or is this the downtime? It'll be very frustrating if it's the former...
The rhythm of watching this black hole is very strange. Every few hours, we all get excited that this time, this hour on the clock will finally be the time when something happens. Then it doesn't.
Anyway, everyone's getting excited about what will happen 25 minutes from now. (At 9am UK, 4am EST.)
Ninja notably isn't live at the moment. He's been busy watching the NFL:
And getting upset about it:
There is a lot of excitement about the update dropping in 15 minutes. Streamers are clearly ready for something, though perhaps just the rumours. Who knows!
Some people are annoyed with streamer Dr Lupo, who began a live stream of a countdown timer that reached zero and – nothing happened.
(But he is donating money from the stream.)
10 minutes until our latest big time. WIll it be yet another disappointment, or not?
Ninja has changed his title on Mixer to "CHAPTER 2 FORTNITE AROUND THE CORNERCHAPTER 2 FORTNITE AROUND THE CORNER".
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