Friday 'Nite is a weekly Fortnite column in which Mark Delaney takes a closer look at current events in the wide world of Fortnite, with a special emphasis on the game's plot, characters, and lore.
The Fortnite island is under duress more often than Peely's driving instructor, and with a Fortnite Season 2 event looking likely--on account of the massive Doomsday Device propped up by the Imagined Order--it's safe to say things are about to pop off once again. Fortnite live events have been more and more spectacular as years have gone on, and after such a story-focused season, this next event looks to be one of the biggest and most story-important events yet. Naturally, this event will surely introduce new mysteries to the grand Fortnite universe, but it also looks poised to answer some long-lingering questions, too.
Then again, there are other things I'm confident this event won't answer just yet. Here are four questions the Fortnite event will resolve, as well as a pair of others it will almost surely put off for at least another season.
It seems we'll find out The Paradigm had been outcasted by The Origin, who felt she betrayed the group according to story threads already seen this season, and she was staying at this mystery landscape. The event itself may confirm this suspicion and, with any luck, give us even more details about what this off-world is like.
The Origin doesn't seem to like when his allies act unpredictably or unilaterally, and even if he would forgive the sisters for their stealth routine, what's the big secret they may have found, and how will it affect the group's cohesion going forward? Lately, The Seven has felt more like The Four or Five, but to topple the IO, they'll need to all be moving toward the same goal. I expect we'll see them come together and save the day as a complete unit for the first time ever in-game.
The Origin's trust seems hard to earn and easy to lose.
What I'm more curious about is whether it's actually the same device as Midas' strange tidal wave-creating machine seen back in Chapter 2, Season 2. As far as we know, Midas is the leader of GHOST, a special operations unit within the IO. That should mean he was acting on behalf of the IO when he first raised his Device, which proved to be faulty, in Chapter 2, Season 2. But is this new device, which shares some visual similarities but also looks quite different, the same thing?
One reason to suspect they're related, and perhaps Midas' Device was a prototype, is that Midas' Device manipulated the Storm and waters surrounding the island. In-game this week, the collider is seeming to suck up the water from nearby riverbeds. It may be that this machine will keep draining the waters until the island has no inland bodies of water left. Is this the hydroelectric cost of energizing this new machine, or were both calibrated to use water as an energy source, and perhaps only this time the IO has gotten it right? I expect whatever the Collider does will reveal whether we should think of these devices as the same things or not.
If Peely does show up in the event, look for him to maybe finally master the art of steering. If he doesn't appear at all, then it's safe to say this has all just been a silly distraction--or maybe he's just in a ditch somewhere.
Some Fortnite superfans think they have it figured out. Speaking to Ben Walker of Top5Gaming on YouTube, he told me there's a good chance what we're actually watching is the return of Truckasaurus, a landmark from the game last seen in Chapter 2, which was basically a Voltron-like machine made of vehicles smashed together. It may be that Peely is more adept at driving than we thought, and his crashing is more like...an odd way to build things.
Today the identity of Geno is one of the biggest lingering mysteries in the game, but it's for that reason I don't expect we'll see it revolved just yet. I anticipate this one could go on as long as even until Chapter 4, which right now is expected to begin around the late fall of 2023.
The Seven drove the IO out of all battlefronts, but was it all a distraction so the IO could build the collider?Some fans have speculated Geno is the true leader of the IO, the father of the sisters, or perhaps even the Storm itself. Fortnite is so unpredictable that even all of these could be true and most fans wouldn't bat an eye. In any event, don't expect this question to be answered at the end of this season.
So it was weird when Slone basically turned off building with the click of a button while the Resistance fought to restore it over the next two weeks. When will Epic explain how this works in-universe? Perhaps never, but at least not soon, I think. It just doesn't seem to have room in an already packed finale that will include likely include the return of The Paradigm and Mecha Team Leader, as well as a maybe space rock-destroying particle collider. *checks watch* Yup, it's time for Fortnite to get weird again.
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