Fortnite‘s had a good run. Since an admittedly awkward 2017 launch, it’s become this cultural behemoth, completely unparseable yet unstoppably popular. But it’s acquired some bloat over those two years – Map locations have vanished, reappeared and warped in and out. Weapons and gimmicks have floated in and out of an interdimensional vault, a vault intimately tied to the battle royale’s ongoing plot.
That’s plenty of baggage for a game where 100 colourful weirdos parachute onto an island and murder each other. Perhaps it’s time to wipe the slate clean. If recent leaks are to be believed, that may be just what Fortnite’s about to get.
Artwork for Fortnite: Capitolo 2 – Chapter 2, for us poor monolinguists – seem to have leaked over on the Italian iOS App Store, Fortnite Insider discovered earlier today. Tellingly, the artwork also isn’t readily recognisable as anywhere in Fortnite’s existing map. Yes, it’s still green and full of trees, but they’re different trees. Plus, there are boats! Whole new look.
If true, this leak would support a number of leaked map location names discovered around the time we reported Season 10’s delayed ending. With 12 new regions found in text files, fans reckoned Fortnite could be a due a soft reboot.
I’m personally not familiar enough with Fortnite’s murder island to know for sure, though. At such a low resolution, it could just be another angle on the existing map, wiped clean of all the detritus it’s acquired over the last two years. New map or not, though, it sounds like Chapter 2 could quite easily be a soft reboot for the battle royale. Look at that screen – there’s not a Batman or time-rift or…
The end of Season 10 is coming at 7pm on Sunday, presumably with another live in-game event. If Fornite does bring Chapter 1 to a close here, the game could be a completely different beast this time next week. Maybe, just maybe, they’ll even ditch the confusing early access label.
It’s been 2 years, Epic. Nobody’s buying it.