The Fortnite island flipped over during Chapter 2’s final event

Fortnite’s big chapter-ending event just ended, and it was a big one. After an all-out war against UFOs, zombies, and the Cube Queen, players were saved in a rescue mission led by Dwayne Johnson. (Well, his in-game character.) Then, the island flipped over.

The event

Let’s back up a bit. The game’s latest season has been all about the cubes, and right when the event loaded up, a mysterious giant blue cube spawned on the map next to all of the players in my lobby. Jumping at the cube bounced players away, but it otherwise, didn’t do anything beyond loom ominously. We also could look at the Cube Queen in the distance, which has been floating in an energy ball over the center of the island for part of the season.

Screenshot: Jay Peters / The Verge

Screenshot: Jay Peters / The Verge

When there were 10 minutes before the event started, the Cube Queen’s evil laugh echoed over the island and zombies started spawning in front of our base. Fortunately, weapons were added to everyone’s inventory, so players worked to fend off the incoming zombie troopers (though the zombies didn’t seem to pose any real threat).

Screenshot: Jay Peters / The Verge

When the clock reached zero, an alarm blared over the island, and the Cube Queen’s pyramid shone bright. She launched a beam into the sky that opened up a huge portal revealing a horde of giant UFOs. During the game’s seventh season, the island was under the shadow of just one UFO; the Cube Queen had brought an army.

UFOs and zombies approached the blue cube as players tried to fend them off. But the battle began to look unwinnable, and things went from bad to worse when a UFO blew up the blue cube.

Screenshot: Jay Peters / The Verge

After that, the event took an interesting twist, moving the perspective under the surface of the island to a CGI cutscene. (It was kind of like if Netflix made a Fortnite TV show.) The game’s main character, Agent Jones, was strapped to a laboratory chair with a device on his head, and Doctor Slone, who betrayed players at the end of last season, was seemingly about to end Jones’ life. Then, a hulking figure known as The Foundation burst in to save the day — and he took off his mask to reveal that he’s played by, as suspected, none other than Dwayne Johnson.

As Jones and The Foundation tried to get to safety, two other characters dressed similarly to The Foundation rescued players on the surface and brought them down to the inner island. Players were then given control to follow someone called The Scientist to get to Jones and The Foundation. But during the escape, the island began to tip over bit by bit.

Screenshot: Jay Peters / The Verge

Eventually, players made it to Jones and The Foundation at the Zero Point (essentially a big ball of energy that has been a key plot point in Fortnite). The Scientist assured everyone that we were safe, but then one of the giant zombies smashed a window, causing water to rush in and for all of us to be forced out.

Soon, my character surfaced and watched as the island slowly tipped up to be completely vertical and then fall the other way. That crushed the Cube Queen, which caused the giant portal with the UFOs to close up. Then the island flipped all the way over revealing a whole new landscape. At a distance, you could see a little bit of the new areas to explore, but a tidal wave quickly swept my player out to sea.

When will Fortnite be back?

Screenshot: Jay Peters / The Verge

Now, Fortnite just shows my player at sea on an empty log. I can’t move, and there’s hardly anything on screen except for me, my log, and the vast open ocean. It’s all reminiscent of the black hole that bridged the transition between Chapters 1 and 2.

There’s no timer or any sort of indication of when Chapter 3 might be playable. But if you want a sneak peek of what’s to come, a leaked trailer looks to have spoiled a lot of what you can expect.

This chapter, which kicked off in October 2019 after a multi-day downtime featuring the black hole, pushed Fortnite’s growing narrative ambitions with events featuring first-person storytelling, an arcade shooter against a Marvel villain, a thrilling single-player event to try and stabilize reality, and even a mission inside an alien mothership full of cubes. Chapter 2’s concluding event took things another step forward, and now we’ll have to wait and see what Epic has in store for Chapter 3.