Fortnite Fan Theories That Might Be True
Ever since Epic Games' Fortnite took the world by storm in 2017, gamers could hardly stop raving about it. For good reason, too, as the game ingeniously mixed crafting elements akin to Minecraft with the exhilarating battle royale format of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds.
Did you know, though, that there's more to the game than building stuff and duking it out with swarms of strangers? If you haven't, you're not alone. Most players are too busy clinging desperately to survival to notice that Epic Games has been peppering the battlefield with all manner of hints about Fortnite's mysterious lore and their plans for upcoming seasons. At first glance, these little bread crumbs seem completely innocuous and hardly worth anyone's attention. Some of the game's most ardent fans, though, have been hard at work deciphering their meanings, and when you see what they've found — well, let's just say that Epic Games has been putting a lot more thought into this battle royale than most have assumed.
Here are theories that fans have painstakingly crafted from some of the game's most cryptic hints. Apologies in advance. These theories will probably get you killed as you start paying attention to the secrets hidden around the island.
The battle royale is simply a simulation taking place in a dome
Let's start with that famous rocket launch at the Villain's Lair of Snobby Shores. For the uninitiated, Epic Games planned a one-time event for June 30, 2018: a highly anticipated rocket launch. Gamers gathered at Snobby Shores, and at 1:30 p.m. Eastern Time, a rocket lifted off in a dazzling spectacle. As launches go, though, this was a strange one. The rocket literally pierced the sky, creating what appeared to be a crack.
Ever since, fans have been piecing together clues and grasping at possible explanations. According to one popular theory put forth online, the rocket didn't crack the sky, but rather, the ceiling. The theory claims that this entire time, players had been part of an elaborate simulation contained within an island-sized dome. And they were being watched, possibly by aliens.
Other popular theories surmise that if there were indeed a simulation, its purpose is not observation: it's training in preparation for some incoming threat. Still others believe the crack could implicate a disturbance in space-time, which could explain the rifts appearing throughout the island at the end of Season 4.
Whatever the truth is, though, one thing is clear. With the effort Epic Games had put into teasing and organizing the rocket launch, the event must serve some significant function, likely as a lead-up to a game-changing revelation.
Season 4's rocket could return as a gameplay mechanic
While it's certainly possible that the recent rocket launch foretells an important story element, some gamers are more excited about the possibilities a rocket would bring to Fortnite's gameplay.
In the days leading up to the rocket launch, dataminers DieBuddies looked into the game's files and found code suggesting that players will be able to launch a rocket themselves with the press of a button.
Perhaps Epic Games plans on letting players weaponize it. According to one theory, Epic will use the rocket in the same way they used the meteors in Season 3: as a destructive force. They would allow players to launch the rocket once per game to level large portions of the map. This wouldn't necessarily kill everyone in those areas, but it would collapse structures that could then fall and cause damage.
A similar theory predicts that players will be able to launch the rocket, not as a weapon, but as a means of exploring space. The theory interprets the game's recurring images of flying saucers as a hint that players will be able to use the rocket to instigate an alien invasion of the island.
The visitor is originally from the future
Some gamers are adamant that there are time traveling shenanigans running amok. Remember those futuristic hop rocks that made an appearance during Season 4 before inexplicably vanishing? According to this one popular theory from Reddit, those hop rocks seemed futuristic because they did come from the future, along with the Visitor, who's just trying to get back home. And his rocket from Season 4 was none other than a homemade time machine that he whipped up using those rocks (which explains why they disappeared).
The portals that appeared after the launch are his doing. They're rips in the fabric of space-time, which is why they were able to cause strange, physical changes in the objects surrounding them.
Recently, data miners took to investigating the game's files and noticed some evidence in support of this theory. GameCentral_FBR found newly added 3D models of the Wild West, like cookfires and card tables. Other users found props of objects associated to different time periods, like of an Ancient Greek anchor, which, lo and behold, later jumped out of a rift.
Coincidence?
Maybe, but considering Epic Games' track record, probably not. These recent events have gamers convinced that time travel will have a huge part to play in Season 5.
Signs point to aliens in Fortnite's near future
You might be wondering what's brought on all this talk of aliens. Rest assured, this isn't just some irrational obsession with extraterrestrial lifeforms.
On March 30, 2018, players noticed two strange occurrences. First, their controllers had begun to periodically and randomly vibrate for no apparent reason. Second, they spotted an unusual object in the sky, presumably a comet, that grew bigger with each passing hour.
Kotaku contacted Epic Games for an explanation for these anomalies, and in response, Epic sent back a single image. It was a picture of Giorgio Tsoukalos, a Swiss television personality who appeared on the History Channel's show, Ancient Aliens, and believes that extraterrestrial beings had visited Earth many ages ago.
Was Epic Games just being cheeky? Or were they leaving another bread crumb for fans to devour? As of today, we don't have an answer, but it does explain why so many fan theories revolve around aliens.
Fortnite takes place on another planet
Some fans are convinced that Fortnite takes place on another planet. MatPat from the popular YouTube channel The Game Theorists is a staunch believer of this theory. He takes the theory one step further and claims in a video that the game takes place on Venus.
According to him, the evidence lies in Fortnite's Save the World mode. In the opening cutscene, your character makes it to the VinderTech Homebase and meets a robotic assistant named Rey. If you look carefully at her clipboard, you'll find a diagram of our solar system. Or more specifically, two planets closely orbiting the sun with a rocket traveling from one to the other.
MatPat makes the case that the two planets are Mercury and Venus, the two planets closest to the Sun, and that the rocket's flight path indicates that your character is currently on Venus.
Another theory on Reddit, though, says that he's just slightly off the mark and that the game takes places on Mars, not Venus. If you look again at that diagram, you'll see that there's a blurry word written next to the rocket's planet of origin. That word looks suspiciously like "Earth," which would make the rocket's destination Mars, the only solid planet further out from the sun than Earth.
Could Fortnite go Mesozoic on us?
Are you getting sick of alien theories? You'll be glad to know that not every fan theory involves UFOs and extraterrestrial lifeforms. This one is about the next best thing: dinosaurs.
During Season 4, gamers were delighted to find a massive imprint in the ruins of a house near Snobby Shores and Greasy Grove. Fans on Reddit immediately took to studying the imprint from an overhead view and decided that it could be none other than the footprint of a dinosaur.
When you consider all the dinosaur references the game has been making, it makes sense. Earlier, Epic released dinosaur themed skins, like the Rex and Tricera Ops. On top of that, Season 3's Battle Pass reward for the 99th tier was a Dinosaur Banner Icon. Fans speculate that the meteorite that destroyed Dusty Depot was another reference.
If Epic has plans of introducing time travel to the game, we might be contending with dinosaurs sometime soon.
The game is filled with hidden messages in Morse code
During the lead up to the comet back in Season 4, all of the in-game TVs mysteriously turned on, displaying a strange emergency broadcast message featuring an image of Fortnite's signature llama. The message relayed a sound reminiscent of the United States' own Emergency Broadcast System, and it appeared all over Epic's social media sites as well.
Data miners looked into the TV's sound files and found a message in Morse code. The message read, "They don't want us to k..." before cutting off, the last word presumably being "know".
Odd as it sounds, this wasn't the only time Epic has teased players with coded messages. Remember those random controller vibrations back in March? A Redditor going by vigilancefoetracer translated the vibration patterns into Morse code, ending up with the message, "SOS D 5 418". It turns out that D5 was a coordinate referring to Tilted Towers and that "418" was code for April of 2018. The deduction was on the money, as at the end of the month, there was a meteor shower that hit various locations across the map, including Tilted Towers. For now, the Towers remain standing, despite players' fears. They did, however, have to say farewell to Dusty Depot, which soon after became Dusty Divot.
So, pay attention to unexplained vibrations and sounds. You could be receiving another one of Epic's clues.
The unbreakable hatch in the Wailing Woods foreshadows underground tunnels
Have you seen that mysterious hatch in the Wailing Woods?
It inexplicably appeared at the beginning of Season 4, and it's been perplexing players ever since. It looks like a garage door sticking out of the dirt, and if you examine the back of the structure, you'll find some sort of indecipherable text. Even weirder, a few players have been able to break it open with a port-a-fort grenade, but no one could get inside.
Some gamers have dismissed it as a harmless callback to the hit show Lost, which had a similar hatch that took an entire season to bust open. Not everyone is convinced, though. Many believe that Epic Games is planting the seeds for a new gameplay mechanic. They suspect that the door will eventually open to reveal an underground tunnel system that players can use to get around the island and sneak up on enemies.
After seeing how crafty Epic could be over the past 5 seasons, would they really leave something so mysterious lying around and do nothing with it?
That mysterious object at the bottom of Loot Lake
At the beginning of Season 5, players noticed a couple of oddities, like a strange, triangular shape underwater in Loot Lake. According to YouTuber Braderz, this murky object is a pyramid sitting at the bottom of the lake, and it's related to the second strange occurrence: the sand that's been falling from the sky. Other gamers like this Redditor came to the same conclusion and they believe that it's going to be the centerpiece of an Egyptian theme to come sometime during Season 5 or 6.
Braderz thinks this pyramid will gradually rise through the water, just as that comet crept closer and closer throughout Season 3 before eventually leveling Dusty Depot. He believes that it will end up replacing Loot Lake (or at least most of it), and his explanation makes sense.
From the beginning, Loot Lake hasn't served much purpose apart from breaking up the map. Players haven't been able to interact with it in any meaningful way, and it's basically just been a cumbersome obstacle for them to avoid. A pyramid would act in mostly the same way, but it would also add to the time travel theme many players are expecting either this season or next.
The map is slowly being flooded
Do you like motorboats? Of course you do. Who doesn't?
According to this theory put forth on Reddit, Fortnite will be adding them as a new vehicle in Season 6. Redditor Mogpapa noticed a surprising lack of water on the island, aside from Loot Lake and a few ponds. This Redditor believes Epic will address this in Season 6, and he might know how.
During Season 3, players could watch the meteor as it drew nearer and nearer. Throughout Season 4, they witnessed trees growing in Dusty Divot. The theory predicts that Epic will be taking the same approach for the game's next major map change in Season 6 and that it will involve the ponds that had formed only recently in Dusty Divot.
The theory goes that these ponds will continue to grow until they are large enough to allow for the battle royale to accommodate a more amphibious style of combat, one that includes a swimming mechanic and motorboats as a new vehicle.
From a business standpoint, it might make sense for Epic Games to pursue these sorts of changes. After all, the market is quickly becoming inundated with battle royale titles, and in order to hold onto their lead, Epic may choose to incorporate new gameplay mechanics to keep their fandom interested. Letting players swim and control marine vessels could diversify combat without losing what brought players to the game in the first place.