Fortnite: Battle Royale was released in September 2017 and was a very improvised project at first. The game developers admitted they didn't have any clue it would explode in popularity as it did, as at that time the emphasis was on Save the World. But explode it did and Epic Games quickly devoted a full time development team to Battle Royale.
Season 1 of Fortnite was retroactively labelled as such when Season 2 came out. Season 1 ran from October to December of 2017 and did not include a battle pass. Instead, you could buy cosmetics if you advanced enough levels during the season. Season 2 introduced a proper battle pass (with 70 tiers), and had a medieval theme. It ran through February of 2018, at which point Season 3 started. This season introduced the full 100 tier battle pass. At this point, the story of Fortnite could be considered to properly begin.
A comet appeared in the sky above the island on March 20th and grew closer as the season progressed. On April 26th, meteors began falling from the sky during matches, destroying builds and disrupting gameplay. This was a precursor to the main strike of the comet, which occurred to start..
Season 4
The comet struck the island, blasting Dusty Depot into Dusty Divot, with smaller strikes hitting elsewhere on the island, including at Risky Reels and Tilted Towers. A base was built around the main meteor strike by a then unnamed organization to investigate it, but someone had hitched a ride on the meteor and escaped before discovery.
Meanwhile, the season had a superhero theme, with a superhero base on one side of the island and an evil lair on the other. The villain lair was home to a rocket that was intended to destroy Tilted Towers. But unbeknownst to the villain, the rocket's programming was highjacked by the person in the meteor, known only as the Visitor. So instead of blowing up Tilted Towers, the reprogrammed rocket instead created a giant rift in the sky.
With the giant rift in the sky, smaller rifts began appearing across the island, taking items such as the Durr Burger head and later depositing it on a hill halfway across the map. Items from other realities back to land on the map, like a Viking ship, Easter Island statues, and others.
Season Five
Season Five brought some of the biggest changes to the island up to that point. The southeast corner of the map became an immense desert, replacing Moisty Mire. The superhero and villain bases were abandoned, and Dusty Divot was similarly abandoned by the investigating organization and overgrown with trees.
As Season Five progressed, the Crack in the Sky began to decay as Enforcers from an organization seemingly maintaining control of the island began to restore order. Before they could finish though, the Crack was hijacked by a force of immeasurable power from another reality that used the Crack to place an object of immense power on the map.
The Cube (named Kevin by the community) began to roll around the map and established six anti-gravity zones. Additionally, when fired upon, the Cube would shoot a bolt of energy that would damage the nearest player. After establishing the anti-gravity zone, the Cube rolled through Tilted Towers, then dropped into Look Lake, turning the lake into a bouncy surface that lasted trough the end of the season until the Cube reemerged.
Season Six
The Cube shattered Loot Lake on September 27th, taking with it the house that had been located in the center of the lake. The Floating Island meandered around the island, gaining energy from the corrupted areas it had imprinted on the island in the previous season.
The Floating Island returned to Loot Lake and shattered, leaving the Cube spinning over the crater it had created, using its power to get to something within the crater. The blast wave rocked the island and the Cube's power awoke Cube Fiends, creatures who would pursue and harass players and could overwhelm them with their numbers.
Meanwhile, the Cube continued to attempt to penetrate the power underneath Loot Lake. Its power began to decay, however, and on November 4th, it exploded, sending players into the In-Between, a location between the realities of the Fortnite universe.
Shortly after the event, an iceberg shrouded in a snowstorm began to approach the southwest corner of the map. As Season Six wound down through November 2018, the iceberg grew closer, heralding a new threat to the island for...
Season Seven
On December 6th, 2018, the ice mass smashed into the southwestern corner of the map, burying Greasy Grove and Flushed Factory in a sheet of ice and replacing them with news locales such as Happy Hamlet and Polar Peak. Embedded deep in Polar Peak was the Ice King, who had imprisoned with a creature simply known as the Prisoner. Initially, the castle on top of Polar Peak was buried in ice, but after arriving on the island, the Prisoner began to regain his fiery powers and the ice sheet melted. On January 19th, 2019, in a desperate bid to keep the Prisoner at bay, the Ice King used a shard of the shattered Cube to unleash a wave of snow and ice across the island, bringing about Ice Fiends in the process.
It was all for naught. The Prisoner escaped and took up residence in Wailing Woods in the northeast corner of the map. There, as his power grew, the woods began to wilt due to the power of his heat. Throughout February 2019, earthquakes began to rock the island, spreading fissures over the area and even shattering a building in Tilted Towers. It was all leading up to...
Season Eight
On February 28th, 2019, a volcano erupted in the northeast corner of the map, with a jungle biome developing around it. Pirates led by Blackheart took up residence in nearby Lazy Lagoon, eager to plunder the island. While the Ice King's, the Prisoner's, and Blackheart's forces all fought on the island, an unnamed organization was searching for something. They excavated a hole near Fatal Fields, at the base of Dusty Divot and by Loot Lake. At Look Lake, they found what they were looking for and dug in the center of the lake, revealing the entry to a Vault.
Keys began appearing around the island that made their way to the Vault as the season progressed. On May 4th, 2019, the Unvaulting Event took place. In a first for the game, the event took place as its own separate playlist, instead of a live in-game event as previous ones had been.
Players unvaulted the drum gun, but at a terrible cost. The eruption destroyed the shops of Retail Row, shattered Tilted Towers, and even impacted Polar Peak, where a large crack appeared in the side of the mountain. The skies of the island remained dark until the end of the season.
Season 9
On May 9th, 2019, in the wake of the volcanic eruption, Tilted Towers and Retail Row were rebuilt into Neo Tilted and Mega Mall, respectively. A series of slipstreams were constructed around the map for quick movement. Seemingly, everything was calm following the upheaval of the past two seasons. The volcano had collapsed into a caldera, and the new locations were powered by the mysterious orb shown to be in the Vault during the previous season's event.
It wasn't to last. The impact to Polar Peak revealed another creature imprisoned by the Ice King, a monster known as the Devourer. It soon escaped, with the castle of Polar Peak on its back, and headed out to the water around the island. It returned and attacked the still exposed Vault in Loot Lake, but did not breach it.
In an act of desperation, the keeper of the Vault, known as Singularity, teamed up with the unnamed organization and created Mecha Team Leader in a construction factory built in the caldera. On July 20th, 2019, the Devourer made a fresh attempt at the Vault and the mech, now ready, went to face it.
The Mech defeated the Devourer and flew off into space with the pilot still onboard, but the ramifications were soon felt. The Mech had torn the orb, formally known as the Zero Point, out of the Vault and cracked it. Over the final days of Season 9, the condition of the Zero Point continued to deteriorate until on August 1st, 2019, it imploded.
Season X
The energy blast froze the Zero Point in a time stasis bubble and sent parts of the island back in time. Dusty Divot reverted back to Dusty Depot, with the comet that generated the impact frozen in midair over the island. A capsule was in the meteor again, though this time instead of the Visitor, it contained the Scientist. The Scientist took up residence at Dusty Depot and began to work on methods to fix the Zero Point.
Over the course of the season, the Scientist activated Rift Zones, that reverted the towns of the island back into previous forms. Neo Tilted was turned into Tilted Town, Mega Mall reverted back to Retail Row but was overrun with Cube Fiends, brought back the Floating Island with a new Cube attached, and Paradise Palms turned into Moisty Palms. These events opened rifts in the sky above the island, providing the means for the Scientist to enact his plan.
During September 2019, another rocket was constructed at Dusty Depot. On October 13th, 2019, it was launched.
The comet destroyed the time stasis bubble surrounding the Zero Point, unleashing its energy all over the island before it collapsed in on itself. For two days, the black hole it spawned was all anyone would see when they logged into the game.
Chapter 2: Season 1
Behind the scenes, the investigative organization that lurked in the background of Chapter 1 seized control of the Zero Point while it recovered. After it finished, they forced it to reboot, and a new island was created from the remnant material of the old. A team was sent in to explore the new island...Apollo.
Chapter 2: Season 1 was the longest season by date in the history of the game, lasting from October 15th, 2019 to February 20th, 2020. Nominally, it was stated because of technical issues with new mechanics the game developers wanted to create for later seasons. However, at the start of the season, the battle pass stated the season would last 8 weeks. I think they had another season lined up and it fell through due to licensing issues. Because eight weeks after the season started, Fortnite had their next crossover event.
I think the game was going to have a full Star Wars season in time for the release of The Rise of Skywalker, but couldn't get it together in time. Outside of the Star Wars event (which introduced lightsabers and blasters to the game), very little happened in this season. The investigative team sent to the island formed the basis of E.G.O., but during the course of the season, opposition forces gathered against them under the guise of A.L.T.E.R. Skirmishes began to break out on the island while a member of E.G.O. with a certain golden touch began to set up shop at the center of the island.
Chapter 2: Season 2
Midas brought a team of operatives to the island with him and formed Ghost, setting up bases around the island, while the remnants of A.L.T.E.R. became Shadow. This season introduced bosses carrying mythic weapons and vaults to unlock when they were defeated. Over the course of the season, however, Midas' team began to turn towards Shadow. Spy war operations started on the island, pitting Shadow and Ghost forces against each other.
An extreme complication occurred during this season that gravely impacted game development. During Week 4, the world went on lockdown at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The game developers were forced to maintain the game from home, which greatly delayed game updates. The season, which was supposed to end in April 2020 originally, lasted until June instead.
In the meantime, Midas had his own plans. He was aware of the investigative organization and their control of the island. He knew they had created the Loop, which trapped characters on the island in a 22 minute cycle that pitted them in fights to the death until the cycle started over. Midas, however, was on the island outside of the Loop and wanted to break it, freeing the island and everyone on it from the endless death fights. So while the spy wars carried on, he used the Zero Point to power a Device. On June 15th, 2020, he activated it.
The Device worked, temporarily. The investigative organization, in a panic, forced the Loop to restart, but in doing so, created the Wall of Water, which replaced the Storm for the last two days of the season. But Loopers (players in the game), had escaped the Loop, even if temporarily.
Chapter 2: Season 3
The Wall of Water broke on June 17th, 2020 and flooded the island. The spy wars were over and Midas was seemingly killed. For the first month and a half of the season, the island was partly under water, which slowly receded with time. Once enough of the water had retreated, drivable cars were activated for the first time in the game as well.
This was the shortest season of Chapter 2 at 10 weeks and really not much happened story wise. At least until the end of the season anyway. A strange rift appeared in the sky over the southwest corner of the map. A hammer crash landed near Salty Springs that no one could move. Strange symbols appeared on a hill near the center of the island. All of this was leading to...
Chapter 2: Season 4
When the Zero Point collapsed in on itself during the End event, the energy emanating from it attracted beings from other realities, including Galactus of Marvel Universe 616. Thor arrived ahead of him and summoned Iron Man, Doctor Doom, Wolverine, and others to defend the island against Galactus' inevitable assault.
Tony Stark transported his workshop from Upstate New York to the island and began working on a plan to beat Galactus. In the meantime, Midas returned as a ghost to the ruins of the agency and haunted the island for a couple of weeks for Halloween 2020.
Throughout the season, Galactus could be seen approaching the island, at one point dipping below the horizon before returning shortly after as having landed and was walking towards it. On December 1st, 2020, Galactus attacked the island and tried to seize the Zero Point.
Chapter 2: Season 5
The attack on the Zero Point left it shattered and floating above the island, spawning a vast desert over the center of the map. It also spat out locations it had absorbed from the previous island during the Black Hole onto the Apollo map, with locations like Dusty Depot, Flushed Factory, and others reappearing.
The investigative organization was finally identified as the Imagined Order. This organization had seized control of the Zero Point and built an elaborate base underneath the island in order to control it. It was they that ran the Loop and controlled the Battle Royale. When Galactus ripped the Zero Point out from their base, it threw it into chaos. John Jones, first seen in the Device event, was sent into the Loop by a then unknown boss with one goal: restore the Zero Point and keep Loopers (players in Battle Royale) from escaping like they did in the Device event.
Over the course of the season, Jones brought in hunters from realities all over the Omniverse. But his actions destabilized the Zero Point as the season wore on. The Zero Point served as the bridge to all other realities and it's destabilization represented a threat to all realities. While Jones was bringing in hunters, the IO stood by and let the Zero Point deteriorate, causing Jones to become disillusioned with them. On March 16th, 2021, the Zero Point imploded.
Chapter 2: Season 6
The leader of the Seven, the Foundation, was summoned by Agent Jones, and agreed to fix the Zero Point in exchange for information on Geno, the leader of the Imagined Order, and the Sisters, two missing members of the Seven. He was not able to stop the Zero Point from imploding, but he contained the blast. The island was sent into a primal state, with wildlife arriving on the island and sniper rifles were replaced with bows.
The spire at the center of the island radiated strange energy and one of the new characters tapped into this dark energy, becoming corrupted by it in the process. The energy signal radiated out into space and attracted the attention of an alien spaceship. In the closing days of the season, strange signals were received on the island's TVs, and abductions occurred at the beginning of a match, with the victim being dumped on a random part of the map with full shields. On June 8th, 2021, the invasion began.
Chapter 2: Season 7
The Imagined Order reemerged after the chaos with the Zero Point of seasons prior. They brought Zero Point back down into their base under the island before the alien mothership could seize it. The Foundation was ejected to the last reality that the Zero Point had been oriented towards and away from the Loop. Agent Jones' boss was revealed to be Doctor Slone, who portrayed herself as a friend to the Loopers and as a leader in the war against the aliens.
Over the course of the season, the mothership rotated around the island as if it was investigating the area. An arms race broke out between the IO and the aliens, while Slone worked on a plan to beat the mothership. The mothership eventually began abducting locations off of the map, and Slone decided to launch a final attack on the invaders. The aliens were notified of the IO's base on the map and went to abduct it. Slone planted hundreds of bombs in the base before it was taken up and launched Operation Skyfire to ensure the destruction of the mothership. In doing so, she betrayed the Loopers and unleashed a malevolent force beyond her power to fight.
Chapter 2: Season 8
The Last Reality had arrived. After sending a Cube that failed to corrupt the original island, the Last Reality used the destruction of the mothership as a Trojan Horse to rain corruption cubes all over the island, though one of them was the Rebooted Cube that was beneficial to Loopers by restoring their shields. The Cubes created pocket dimensions known as the Sideways, where Sideways weapons could be found, along with a return of Cube monsters. A golden cube also landed on the island and began to rotate around the area, activating other corruption cubes in its wake. These cubes spawned smaller cubes, all of which began marching towards the center of the island.
On October 5th, the leader of the Last Reality emerged from the Golden Cube and began to use the Cubes to build the Convergence over the center of the map.
The Cube Queen unleashed her most powerful creatures on the island, Caretakers that existed in their own pocket dimension as they roamed the island destroying everything in their wake. The Convergence slowly built up, with the Cube Queen hovering over it all as it grew. Meanwhile, Doctor Slone, now openly hostile to the Loopers after betraying them, slowly wound her way to a previously locked IO base in the mountains in the southeast of the island. Her intent was not to fight the Last Reality, but seemed content to abandon the Loopers to their fate.
The Cube Queen formed the Pyramid on November 16th and corruption radiated out of it over the whole island. The Loopers began making a ramshackle base to the north of the Pyramid as it was clear the Cube Queen was going to begin her final assault to corrupt the island for good. On December 4th, the assault commenced.
Chapter 3: Season 1
In a desperate bid to save the island from the Last Reality's invasion, the Seven flipped the Island over, revealing another island embedded in the underside of Apollo, this one named Artemis. When the Zero Point regenerated the island following the Black Hole, it made one island with some original named locations, but created an entirely separate island underneath it with other named locations from Athena (the original island). The Imagined Order did not know Artemis existed, but the Seven had made their home there.
For a time, peace reigned on the island. The Last Reality had been expunged, though their infrastructure was still embedded on the remnants of Apollo beneath the waves. The Imagined Order took some time to reorganize, but during the course of the first season, they began to move their operations to the new island. Doctor Slone was the first to breach the new island, followed by a few teams of Imagined Order drill teams. Towards the end of the season, earthquakes began to rock the island, creating sinkholes and destroying a Seven outpost. It heralded the full invasion of a vengeful Imagined Order, which began on March 20th, 2022
Chapter 3: Season 2
The Imagined Order swiftly seized control of much of the island and crippled the Loopers by disabling building for a time. The Seven rallied the Loopers, however, and slowly they began to seize control of the island. They did this in pitched battles over named locations where an Imagined Order dirigible was located, with each battle ending in victory for the Loopers with the dirigible destroyed.
Eventually, the Imagined Order retained control only over their mountain base at Covert Cavern, and Loot Lake. However, they had a Doomsday device known as the Collider, which was created to use the Zero Point to obliterate life on the island in order to allow the Imagined Order to start over the Loop without such unruly subjects.
Unknown to the Imagined Order initially, the Seven had reestablished contact with the Paradigm, an excommunicated member of the Seven as she had aided the Imagined Order by piloting the mech during the Final Showdown event. The mech, which had flown off into space after destroying the Devourer, was repaired on the Seven's base on the Ice Moon outside of the Loop. On June 4th, 2022, the Mech was ready for battle.
Chapter 3: Season 3
The Imagined Order was destroyed and the Zero Point was set free from their control. The Loopers began a massive celebration, even as a strange biome overran the southwest part of Artemis. During the Collision, the Zero Point had been damaged and a malevolent force reached out to the island through the Zero Point to plant the Reality Tree. Over the season, the Reality Tree began to spread its roots over the island, changing named locations and revealing some of the stored matter in the Zero Point in these areas.
The Seven was alarmed at the changes throughout the island and launched an investigation. One by one, the remaining members of the Seven on the island disappeared and a mysterious, shiny substance began to spill onto the island.
Chapter 3: Season 4
Chrome began to overrun the island, consuming locations first altered by the Reality Tree. The Herald, a member of the Last Reality, controlled the chrome and used it to consume three members of the Seven. The Paradigm escaped to her original reality, however, in order to come up with a way to defeat the Herald.
The chrome overran the island much in the same way that Cube corruption did to the previous island. The chrome has been winding its way to the Reality Tree, which as a conduit of the Zero Point, contains enough power to potentially destroy the island. The Paradigm reemerged at the end of the season and told the Loopers she had a plan to save them...
Concerts
Fortnite has had a number of major concerts and a few smaller ones. The first one was hosted by Marshmello in Chapter 1: Season 7, Travis Scott hosted Astronomical in Chapter 2: Season 2, and Ariana Grande hosted the Rift Tour in Chapter 2: Season 7.
Map Changes
This final video shows how the map has changed over the years.
