"Fortnite" is one of the most popular video games worldwide with more than 250 million users across seven gaming platforms. However, the Epic Games' battle royale title has been down for several hours after a Season 10 live event that has left the game unplayable with players staring at a black hole.
What Happened?
The event, fittingly titled "The End," started off with a rocket launch and eventually obliterated the entire map out of existence. The sequence of events that led to the worldwide blackout was set in motion after a countdown clock appeared above the Visitor's rocket at Dusty Depot.
As soon as the clock hit zero, the rocket hurled towards the sky, triggering several rips in time and space. Then, a series of rockets started appearing out of the rifts across the map and seconds later all the rockets converged on one common location. This was followed by a large explosion of energy that flung players so far into space that they could see the Season 10 map in its entirety, before being sucked into a black hole, as pointed out by IGN.
What Does It Mean?
According to Forbes, Epic Games is going out of its way to pretend like they've killed "Fortnite." The video game's official social media accounts have also gone dark, so if you're following any of these accounts, the only thing you'll see is either an image of the black hole or a black screen.
So what really is happening? It appears to be server downtime and is quite possibly Epic Games' way of unveiling the highly anticipated new "Fortnite" map. Rumours and leaks of the new map have been doing the rounds for quite some time now but this time it's really happening.
There has been no official announcement about when the new map will arrive or when the servers will be up again. Usually, server downtime for the game's patches lasts anywhere between an hour and a few hours. However, if there is a whole new map coming, with a brand new season and new challenges, it could take a while.
