The holiday season leading up to New Year's Day is always a quiet one for Fortnite players. Epic Games is typically on a year-long schedule delivering updates, videos, new content, and more. But for these past few weeks, Fortnite has been able to take a deep breath. Now, it seems that the Fortnite content factory is spinning back up. Dataminers have once again begun to discover planned changes within the battle royale's files. Next up appears to be another addition to Fortnite's Coliseum location.
Fortnite's Coliseum leak comes from prominent dataminer Mang0e, who says that they discovered something in the 15.10 patch released mid-December. Among the files, but not currently used in-game, is a variant for the Coliseum's fighting grounds. The change replaces the sands of the Coliseum with water instead, instead featuring two different longboats and different lengths of docks arranged between them. The alternative Coliseum would offer a much more dynamics setting for Fortnite players to battle.
Mang0e also notes that this change may be inspired directly from history. It's been documented that Romans once filled the real Coliseum with water and held a simulated naval battle featuring fleets of ships and warriors battling for supremacy. Epic Games appears to be trying to recreate the concept in Fortnite, though obviously in a more silly and less brutal and violent way. Maybe if Epic let players drive the ships around, it'd be a bit more traditional of a Coliseum experience.
The Coliseum change from the sand floor to a water floor obviously hasn't been made in-game. Further, it's unclear what Epic's plan is for the alternate Coliseum arrangement will be. Since the floor has been in the game files for some time, but hasn't been referenced yet, it's possible that it's a legacy file that ended up being passed over. It's also possible that the Coliseum chance will be used in one of Fortnite's upcoming patches.
Fortnite's Colossal Coliseum was added as a point of interest in the game's Chapter 2 Season 5 update. Its layout changes every time it spawns, so having another rotating floor isn't much of a surprise. If anything, it's a surprise that this floor hasn't been included already. Epic seems to have further plans for the Fortnite Coliseum yet, however.
2021 is certain to be another big year for Fortnite as Epic Games continues to roll out new content patches for the game. New seasons are all but guaranteed, and maybe a new chapter will be around the corner, too. Expect more Fortnite news for 2021 to come in the weeks ahead.
Fortnite is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.