Last year, video game publisher and Fortnite developer Epic Games entered a huge legal battle with Apple over profits from the iOS version of the massively popular battle royale game. As the trial was moved to an in-person hearing, the proceedings officially began today, unexpectedly revealing some interesting information on Epic Games' plans for Fortnite thanks to internal documents.
Such internal documents notably leaked a variety of either scrapped or potential Fortnite crossovers, including collaborations with Lebron James, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Lady Gaga, and even characters like Naruto and Metroid's Samus Aran. However, in addition to seemingly having some sort of basketball mode in the works, it looks like Epic Games has also had some open-world plans for the battle royale game as well.
As shared by popular Fortnite news Twitter account HYPEX, today's leaked internal Epic Games documents have also revealed plans for a new kind of map, codenamed "Sandbox." This leak directly confirmed HYPEX's previous suspicions about a new map/terrain found deep within in Fortnite's files in a recent update just last week. While it is only known that the map is for an Open World Sandbox Simulation Mode, fans are beginning to speculate as to what more that could mean.
The map shown off in the internal documents certainly looks similar to the more "primal" parts of Fortnite's current Chapter 2 Season 6 map. Additionally, there seems to be some sort of cabin that players suspect they may be able to rest at in such an open-world mode. At the moment, the most popular theory many fans are subscribing to is that Fortnite could be planning to introduce a mode similar to something like Minecraft, where players can roam an open-world while manipulating certain aspects of the environment at will.
Other fans suspect that Epic Games could be working on an open-wold aspect of Fortnite's PvE Save the World mode, which has struggled since the battle royale skyrocketed in popularity. Just last week, it was announced that the Fortnite Crew Pack for May 2021 would give subscribers permanent access to Fortnite Save the World, so it's possible that this open-world sandbox map may be another attempt to draw players back to Fortnite's original mode.
As the Epic Games vs. Apple court proceedings began earlier today, in a rather humorous turn of events, fans were able to call-in and actually speak as the dial-in lines were left open, which led to a flood of chaos. Although Fortnite's mobile future may be uncertain, the game is now well into Chapter 2 Season 6, just recently adding an official crossover with world-famous soccer player Neymar Jr. to the game.
Fortnite is out now for PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.