The slogan for the upcoming season of Fortnite is quite literally throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks: “Break the rules, change the game.”
For a game that has done just about every crossover imaginable, it’s kind of wild to just look at the image at the top of this post and see how big Epic Games is going this time.
Some of the crossover characters include: Sonic the Hedgehog, Pac-Man, Crash Bandicoot, Ryu and other Street Fighter characters, Master Chief, Spyro the Dragon, Lara Croft and countless others. Some of the more surprising inclusions are Joker and Morgana from Persona 5, Sora and the KEyblade from Kingdom Hearts and Mega Man. Geralt of Rivia is also making a return to Fortnite land.
Here’s the trailer for ‘Override’, aka Fortnite Chapter 7, Season 4:
What Time Does Season 3 End And Season 4 Begin?
Fortnite will start going down for maintenance the evening of Wednesday, August 19, and servers will officially go dark at 11 pm Pacific Time, which is 2 am Eastern Time on Thursday, August 20. Downtime will last around four hours, though this isn’t set in stone and servers could be back online earlier or later than the following times. This is just a rough estimate. Expect the game to be back up and running by Thursday morning one way or another, barring some catastrophe.
| Region | Matchmaking disabled | Downtime begins | Expected launch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Arizona / Pacific (PDT) | Aug. 19, 10:30 p.m. | Aug. 19, 11 p.m. | Aug. 20, 3 a.m. |
| Mountain (MDT) | Aug. 19, 11:30 p.m. | Aug. 20, 12 a.m. | Aug. 20, 4 a.m. |
| Central (CDT) | Aug. 20, 12:30 a.m. | Aug. 20, 1 a.m. | Aug. 20, 5 a.m. |
| Eastern (EDT) | Aug. 20, 1:30 a.m. | Aug. 20, 2 a.m. | Aug. 20, 6 a.m. |
| Brazil (BRT) | Aug. 20, 2:30 a.m. | Aug. 20, 3 a.m. | Aug. 20, 7 a.m. |
| UTC | Aug. 20, 5:30 a.m. | Aug. 20, 6 a.m. | Aug. 20, 10 a.m. |
| United Kingdom (BST) | Aug. 20, 6:30 a.m. | Aug. 20, 7 a.m. | Aug. 20, 11 a.m. |
| Central Europe (CEST) | Aug. 20, 7:30 a.m. | Aug. 20, 8 a.m. | Aug. 20, 12 p.m. |
| Turkey (TRT) | Aug. 20, 8:30 a.m. | Aug. 20, 9 a.m. | Aug. 20, 1 p.m. |
| UAE (GST) | Aug. 20, 9:30 a.m. | Aug. 20, 10 a.m. | Aug. 20, 2 p.m. |
| India (IST) | Aug. 20, 11 a.m. | Aug. 20, 11:30 a.m. | Aug. 20, 3:30 p.m. |
| China / Singapore | Aug. 20, 1:30 p.m. | Aug. 20, 2 p.m. | Aug. 20, 6 p.m. |
| Japan / South Korea | Aug. 20, 2:30 p.m. | Aug. 20, 3 p.m. | Aug. 20, 7 p.m. |
| Australia East (AEST) | Aug. 20, 3:30 p.m. | Aug. 20, 4 p.m. | Aug. 20, 8 p.m. |
| New Zealand (NZST) | Aug. 20, 5:30 p.m. | Aug. 20, 6 p.m. | Aug. 20, 10 p.m. |
What To Expect In Chapter 7, Season 4 ‘Override’
First off, here’s the new Battle Pass:
Play Puzzles & Games on Forbes
The lineup includes K1TTYW1NS, Phantom, Grace Crowne, Geno, Sonic the Hedgehog, Mali, Wrixel, and Bastian. Phantom and Bastian are both very cool. I also like Grace Crowne and Mali.
Map Changes:
The Island has been “hacked” and partially rebooted around a giant central Spire. The expected new locations are:
- Geno’s HQ
- Green Hill Zone
- The Spire
- Temple
- Pac-Man Island
Green Hill Zone is the most substantial crossover location shown so far, bringing actual Sonic loops, rings and checkerboard terrain to the battle royale map. Calamari Canyon, Frosted Flats and Sinister Strip are reportedly leaving, while the rest of the Chapter 7 map largely should remain roughly unchanged.
New Gameplay:
The most interesting additions shown or strongly indicated are:
- Sonic Spin Dash Mythic: High-speed traversal that can run up walls and around Green Hill loops. You know, like how Sonic moves.
- Mega Man Mythic: An arm cannon with a chargeable attack.
- Tetrimino Junk Rift: Drops giant Tetris blocks onto an area, which could interact in interesting ways with a game at least partially about building.
- 8-Bit Shotgun: A pixelated close-range weapon which reminds me of the DOOM pixel shotgun that was released in Call of Duty a couple years ago.
- Masamune AR and Shingen SMG: Futuristic weapons shown being dual-wielded.
- New Sprites: Sonic, Tails, Jazz Jackrabbit, Klombo and several original Sprites. Tails appears to provide aerial mobility, while Sonic provides speed.
- Cartridge system: Players apparently insert cartridges into the Island’s central system, triggering match-wide modifiers that affect everybody—not merely the squad activating them.
It’ll be interesting to see what exactly these cartridges do and what kind of modifiers are added to a match, as this could genuinely impact the game in fun (or infuriating) ways.
The Story So Far
I admit, I’m behind on my Fortnite lore and don’t pay that much attention to the story beats as this is much more of a casual interest for me these days. But the story leading into Season 4 is basically more Zero Point shenanigans.
During the August 15 “Unstable” Story Moment, Doctor Slone attempted to stabilize the damaged Zero Point. Geno hacked the stabilizer, overwhelmed Slone’s controls and stole the Zero Point, leaving a game cartridge in its place. The new season’s premise is to override Geno’s system and take back the Island. But to what end? We’ll all still be stuck on the island forever, killing one another like some crazed Gilligan’s Island parody. (Now there’s a crossover for you, Epic Games).
Get your challenges done fast, young padawans. Fortnite will be down in a matter of hours.