UPDATE 27/10/23: Fortnite’s original map will return on 3rd November 2023.
Epic Games made the annouNcement via social media this afternoon, lining up with previous leaks – as previously reported below.
“Sprint (or Mantle, your choice) back to Chapter 1,” reads a post by Epic Games on X, formerly Twitter. The wording here suggests the game will retain its newer movement features (such as sprinting and mantling) while reverting through time travel shenanigans back to the battle royale’s original Island.
There’s more on how that will work – and what will come next – in our original story below.
ORIGINAL STORY 11/10/23:Fortnite will drop players back into the game’s basic but beloved original map – or at least parts of it.
That’s according to a wave of reports from trusted leakers such as HypeX and Shiina, who rely on insider information and details gleaned from within Fortnite’s files.
Yesterday, Fortnite imagery appeared online that referenced a return to the original “Chapter 1” map, as this season’s villain Kado Thorne can be seen standing in front of a time machine set to the date “2018 07 12” – that’s the day the original map’s fifth season launched.
It’s claimed that the end of the current Fortnite season will see this time machine go haywire, and bring parts of the original Fortnite map into the present.
Fortnite’s current season (Chapter 4 Season 4) is slated to end on 3rd November. After this, the game’s next season is then expected to showcase the original Fortnite map – likely with its original seasonal changes being added over subsequent weeks – through the rest of next month.
After that, Fortnite will shift fully into its next Island map with Chapter 5 in December. Phew!
November’s nostalgia-themed mini-season with original Fortnite map chunks, as well as the game’s original weapon pool, would be unlike anything Epic Games has done in Fortnite so far. However, the developer has consistently sought to surprise fans with when and how it rolls out major seasonal and chapter changes.