While it's true that every season of Fortnite expands the lore of the popular battle royale game exponentially, it can be argued that the ongoing Chapter 2 Season 8 has done some particularly heavy lifting in the story department. Following the alien invasion that dominated the game during the preceding season, Epic Games has focused primarily on exploring the Cube-shaped entities that have been haunting players for years. Alongside their physical return to the map, the pulsating inter-dimensional shapes have subsequently been accompanied by explanations for their origins, motivations, and even societal structure.
One of the themes that's become prevalent in Fortnite since the game's battle royale mode was soft-rebooted with a new map is the idea of different factions actively fighting over control of the shifting area. During Chapter 2 Season 8, the leader of the Cubes, who facilitated the aforementioned lore-exposition expansion alongside a number of historic in-universe events, finally joined in on the action herself. Dubbed succinctly as the Cube Queen, this mysterious monarch not only has a dastardly past, but also clearly has plans for the future of Epic Games' cultural phenomenon.
The Cube Queen's Lore
Since Fortnite's original 5th season back in the summer of 2018, sentient Cube-shaped entities, like the community named Kevin, have repeatedly plagued battle royale players. During the closing moments of the game's alien-themed adventures, the faction now reveled to be called the Cube Legion was unleashed onto the map once again following the Imagined Order's Operation: Sky Fire. Hailing from The Sideways dimension, a realm they natively occupy alongside the aforementioned alien Kymera, the predominantly purple shaped creatures were accompanied this time around by a giant golden cube.
Following the formation of The Convergence, a castle-like structure built out of Cubes, the golden object was revealed to contain a humanoid-shaped entity known as the Cube Queen. In terms of the hierarchical structure of The Cube Legion, the monarch sits at the very top of the pyramid and has direct dominion over the Cubes, zombie-like Cube Fiends, Caretakers, and the Cube Assassin. Having dispatched soldiers like Kevin in the past to do her bidding, most of the disasters that have unfolded across Fortnite's history can be directly attributed back to her. While it was at one point assumed that the Cubes were hell-bent on seizing the Zero Point, it's now inferred that the faction and its ruler's motivations are focused more simply on destroying realities.
Based on the eerie song pack that players can unlock, which is sung by the Queen herself, it sounds as though the Legion has had wide-spread success in achieving this goal in the past. Due to the Cube Queen's role in the ongoing season of Fortnite, it stands to reason that fans will get even more lore-based exposition regarding her past in the coming weeks. Considering she's actually the latest in a fairly extensive list of monarchs to make an appearance in-game, there's a chance that her relationship to older characters could still be explored too. Entities like the Storm King boss seem like a particularly prime candidate for exploration. With Fortnite Chapter 3 rumored to be coming this December, following a titanic faction-fueled battle, there's a chance that the Cube Queen's story could ultimately end in victory once she leaves her stationary position.
The Playable Cube Queen
Like most of the characters that Epic Games creates and inserts into Fortnite's lore, the Cube Queen is significant to proceedings from a commercial perspective as well. That's because from the end of October, up until Chapter 2 Season 8's conclusion on December 5, players can unlock the monarch for use in their own battle royale conquests. Just like a laundry list of other entities, the Cube Queen's appearance on the map was actually leading in-part to her reveal as the latest secret skin that's only available to players who have invested in the current Battle Pass.
In comparison to a lot of the previous secret skins that have graced Fortnite over the years, the Cube Queen is actually comparatively easy to unlock. Players that have bought into the current iteration of the Battle Pass only have to complete 4 easy challenges to add the villain and a couple of bonus items to their collections. Shaking down two opponents and surviving circles with Sideways weapons in their loadouts, are the types of tasks that a lot of people will naturally complete whilst playing without necessarily realizing. Doing so does admittedly unlock a second set of straightforward challenges, that can be completed in similar fashion, which reward players with some bonus cosmetics and style skin variations for the Cube Queen.
Fortnite is free-to-play on PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.