This weekend, Fortnite simultaneously did something it had never done before and something it hadn't done in a long time. On the game's historic Battle Royale island, players watched as a giant hand made of rapidly cooling lava emerged from the ground, grabbing a massive treasure box that then lay, dangling, high in the air.
The appearance of the hand had been highly anticipated. Fans had followed the rhythmic noises to a spot outside Ruined Reels, a sort of Greek amphitheater turned open-air cinema, and a slowly widening crack in the ground. A new character, the aptly named Odyssey, had already appeared nearby to provide some much-needed exposition and preview for Fortnite's new Ancient Greek-themed incoming season. And outside of the game, data miners quickly discovered what was about to happen and posted it all on social media. The stage was set.
Newscast: Will Pokémon Legends: ZA be a Switch 2 launch title?So when the hand came up, people knew what to do. That big box? It could open if the chains around it were broken. And then the players got to work. Some completely ignored Fortnite's normal Battle Royale rules, simply landing on the island and shooting/pecking at the chest restraints, breaking them over the course of several hours, one by one. Others, as expected, decided to take advantage of all this by setting up camp nearby and attacking those who tried to open the box. A debate broke out over player etiquette, something that reminded me of the outrage over people eliminating more than 50 players at once as they settled in to watch Fortnite's first in-game event, the rocket launch, back in the day. 2018.
Fortnite The Hand Cinematic EventSo yeah, for the first time, Fortnite had a giant molten hand sticking out of its island. And for the first time in what seemed like a long time, Fortnite had a proper interactive event on its main island. Fortnite's live events, more recently, have been consigned to their own mini modes. In particular, they have also felt fewer in number and more distant from each other. The game's last two major events took place within a year of each other in successive Novembers, when Battle Royale reset its island map on what has now become something of a predictable schedule.
The appearance of the hand, albeit on a smaller scale, was a welcome change to all that, and the kind of unique Fortnite moment I hope to see again. The game's Battle Royale mode has long been home to unique, must-see moments, but also long-running daily tweaks that encourage players to revisit and see what's different on the island each day. The best of them (the slow preparation of Tony Stark's base that appears during the Marvel season, the gradual construction of the robot before the brilliant live event of the monster kaiju, the noise of the roads of the many Cubes) make the Fortnite's map feels alive in a way that no other game achieves.
The box has been opened…Being able to see this all happen provides that feeling of having been there for a moment that will not be repeated, something that then sticks in memory as a result. But allowing player interaction also adds a sense of authorship to Fortnite's story: in this case, there's was a fight to open the box, and that some players – for good or bad reasons – decided not to participate. I saw some saying it shouldn't be opened. And maybe they were right? Because when that box opened, as it did, after a day of effort by the players, well, what was inside didn't look so good. A massive column of fire now spirals outward, visible from the other side of the map, heralding what will be unleashed later this week.
Cynics might see all of this as a clever form of viral marketing to ensure players know a big seasonal change is coming and that their V-Bucks are properly topped up. But as someone who has closely followed Fortnite's labyrinthine story over the years and has called out the filth of the narrative for much of the last 12 months, it's still exciting to see it unfold.
As always with Fortnite, it's hard to guess what's coming next. More mini events? More story for next season? For a game that hundreds, if not thousands, of people have worked on, there's a lot left to reveal (or not) to the game itself. Was it a coincidence that Donald Mustard's departure last year marked Fortnite's quietest year yet for new live events and stories? Or was Epic Games too busy releasing too many other modes to do more? Whatever the case, it now appears that the new era of Fortnite (led by former Marvel and PlayStation creative Charlie Wen) has properly begun.
What is in the box? The new season of Fortnite starts on Friday morning UK time.
