Although Fortnite has become somewhat known for its obscure collaborations, an entire season based on a collaboration with Marvel came as a surprise to many. And in traditional Fortnite fashion, Chapter 2 Season 4 has gone out with a bang as its Devourer of Worlds event took place earlier today.
In perhaps Fortnite's most extravagant event yet, players were able to take control of the iconic Battle Bus in order to take down Galactus, Marvel's villainous Devourer of Worlds. However, now that the season's concluding event has come and gone, it seems that players will have to wait just a little bit longer to hop back on the Battle Bus.
As today's Devourer of Worlds event came to an end, players were met with a screen that read, "to be continued in Season 5," followed by a large countdown for the new season's release. This countdown originally pointed to a Season 5 release at 9:00 pm PT, but has now been adjusted to account for the servers' scheduled downtime as well, putting the expected release of Chapter 2 Season 5 at 1 am PT. However, instead of letting players continue the match they were in or join a new match like after most previous in-game Fortnite events, it seems that Epic Games has made Fortnite completely unplayable until the scheduled downtime is complete.
A tweet made by Epic's Fortnite Status account mentioned that Fortnite is currently in a "prep state" for the next season and urged players to stay tuned to Twitter for more updates on Season 5's release. It is worth noting that the only other time players were forced to wait before playing Fortnite again after a season-concluding event was back at the end of Chapter 1's final season, which left players staring at a black hole loading screen until the game was made available to play again at the release of Chapter 2 Season 1.
Thanks to a glitch discovered last week that allowed players to drive the Battle Bus towards Galactus, Fortnite players already had a general idea of what Chapter 2 Season 4's concluding event could entail. However, something players were likely not expecting to see in this event was a call back to the Chapter 2 Season 1 event, The Device, which presented players with a surreal encounter with Jonesy, one of the biggest reveals of the game's lore. Just before presenting the Chapter 2 Season 5 countdown today, players were shown a brief clip in which Jonesy wakes up in a panic, perhaps hinting at more light being shed on this vague overarching story in the coming season.
As players eagerly wait to jump back into Fortnite, they can be sure they'll be met with a variety of surprises, as Fortnite never seems to pull punches when releasing new content with each Fortnite update. Only time will tell whether the next season will reveal another collaboration, something completely original, or answers to many fans' burning questions about the series' ambiguous lore.
Fortnite is free-to-play for PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.