Say what you like about Fortnite (and everybody has something to say about it, if the last four years are anything to go by), but Epic has certainly kept a lot of their players invested as time has gone on. Whether through the hook of perfecting its countless mechanics, enjoying the constant content churn, or diving into the world’s surprisingly deep lore, Fortnite has lasted the distance over the years admirably well.
Its storyline, though, is showing the signs of being weighed down by question after question, almost to breaking point. What started out as a few theories here and there about the Battle Royale island being some kind of training ground for Save the World has morphed into a temporal realm where people can’t talk and everything keeps getting stuck in a loop, but people can somehow also have jobs but not all people are actually people and are actually fish.
Oh, and Marvel’s there sometimes as well, and also Batman.
Fortnite has kept itself going lore-wise over the years with a series of “mystery boxes”, chin-strokers about the Fortnite world and universe that will presumably be answered at some point down the line, encouraging fan speculation. Why can’t people talk? How do they keep forgetting everything? Who is IO? Who are The Seven? What is the Zero Point? And so on.
The Fortnite story is currently in its Crystal Skull phase, which isn’t a great phase for anything to be in. After the island was sent back to primal times following the leader of The Seven (serious space divas who haven’t been fully revealed or explained after three years) encasing himself in a spire to stop the Zero Point from imploding and changing all of Reality, which followed someone hiring 80s action movie characters to save the island from their own idiocy, which followed Galactus having a good chew on existence, it now seems like aliens are coming to Fortnite. When you type it out like that, it makes even less sense.
Fortnite content creators around the world are currently being sent mysterious packages, which seem to be teeing up the alien theme for Season 7.
Yo… Just checking if any other Fortnite creators got sent a DVD player with a DVD titled "They're coming"…?
Either Fortnite is promoting the new season or I have a stalker and I am about to be murdered. Would be great if I knew which…. pic.twitter.com/JZdTPWZCm1
— AussieAntics (@AussieAntics) May 26, 2021
To recap the other bits of #theyrecoming info;
There are not only DVDs, but also Postcards and Posters that were spotted before the DVDs.
These images come from the Theyrecoming discordhttps://t.co/DWpvodt7dr pic.twitter.com/1ylyQfGzD7
— iFireMonkey (@iFireMonkey) May 26, 2021
Any ideas? Its gotta be Fortnite right? pic.twitter.com/gm6UK929Q7
— Martyn Littlewood (@InTheLittleWood) May 26, 2021
There’s nothing wrong with these kinds of ongoing mysteries in video games, as a rule. ARGs are great tools for getting a community invested in some upcoming reveal, and not everything needs to be spelled out every step of the way in terms of narrative. Franchises like FNAF and, more recently, Little Nightmares have shown that leaving the storyline open for interpretation can lead to even greater investment from the community.
However, in Fortnite’s case, when it seems like nothing is ever confirmed in-game and left to external DC collaborations for fans to fill in the blanks, it becomes exhausting to try and keep up with the clues and contradictions. You have to close some of those mystery boxes, but with aliens seemingly about to beam us up into space and questions on Genō, The Foundation, and The Sisters lingering, it just seems as if Fortnite’s lore is getting more and more unruly.
It’s hard to shake the belief that Fortnite’s lore is being chopped and changed to fit around crossovers and collabs, rather than the other way around. Epic’s desire for a “metaverse” is clear for all to see and the concept is sound, fascinating even, but the execution is lacking when it seems to have killed the natural momentum of the storyline. It’s hard to invest in Fortnite as its own entity when it’s taking on so many other entities.
(Funnily enough, J.J. Abrams, the lord of the mystery box, has actually somehow been in the game as himself to show like twenty terrible seconds from the terrible Rise of Skywalker. None of this was rationalised in canon, Abrams just was.)
Season 7 feels like a major season for Fortnite for a couple of reasons. Not only does it need to bring back lapsed fans who might have been put off by the polarising Season 6, but it’s also about that time where these mystery boxes need to start being closed in a satisfying way, rather than opening more. After almost four years, the Fortnite community could probably do with some answers.
Fortnite is free-to-play on PC via the Epic Games Store, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X | S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and Android.
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