The Fortnite black hole was one of the greatest parts of the 2010's. I'm not joking.
Fortnite at it's peak was something that you just had to be there for. I started playing when Fortnite was released on the Switch, near the end of season 4. I used to be scared of playing solo, so I would almost exclusively play 50/50. The first place I ever dropped was Lucky Landing. When making my account I accidentally tapped one of the suggested words, so my username was "babyBOinitrogylic". I remember it all so well.
Season 5 was when I started getting seriously into the game. I used to pretend that I hated Fortnite, because I was all big into Reddit at the time, and that's what Redditors did. At Boy Scout camp I started getting people's usernames and adding them. It was so fun, I felt like such a cool kid. I sucked at the game. I only ever got 1 win during the entire chapter 1. Many people would consider season 5 the peak of Fortnite. Season 5 is when I bought v-bucks for the first time using money I just had in PayPal somehow. I had $10 on my name, and I spent my entire net worth on Fortnite. Somehow, I also purchased The Ace bundle, which is still the skin I use, but I may change that eventually.
Near the end of the season, one of the people I played with announced that he was quitting Fortnite to focus on Overwatch. However, I started playing with people from school, and that's when I REALLY started getting into Fortnite. Season 6 started, and to be honest this season was unremarkable. They added jiggle physics, and then removed them. But I remember being grounded and sneaking into the basement to see what was new at the start of the season. They also added a t-pose emote, which was the funniest thing at the time.
For me, season 7 was when Fortnite peaked. Season 7 was when I got all the way to rank 97 in the battle pass. The season wasn't perfect, but it was so cozy. Planes were added, which sucked, but it was whatever. A whole snow biome was added, which was super cozy. Plus, a creative mode was added, that let people make their own minigames and maps. This certainly won't have any negative effects in the future. Season 7 was when I also started becoming actually good at the game. Also, I have a physical Fortnite game box.
The Christmas event was big, as it represented a change in the attitude Epic had. Previously, the only way to get skins was by spending money. None of the free unlocks in the battle pass were skins. During the Christmas event, every day you got to open another present. But on the last day, you got to open a huge present. Inside of this was a skin, completely for free. This was the first time that Epic gave away a skin for free.
Season 8 was whatever. They added a jungle biome, which was cool I guess. I didn't care. This was when I stopped playing Fortnite as much. That is completely fine, you can only play a game so much before it starts getting boring. At this point, none of my friends were playing anymore either, at least not like they used to.
Season 9 and 10 existed. They seemed cool, I wish I played them more. But I didn't. I hardly played by season 9, but I still kept up with the game online. But season 10 was the first time that I stopped caring. I just let the whole season slip through my grubby little fingers. And I wasn't the only one. I feel like at this point, people just stopped caring about Fortnite. It's moment was up. And Epic realized this.
At the end of Season 10, Epic Games did something that no game had ever done before, as far as I'm aware. And even if a game had, never to this scale. Fortnite does live events, which is when events happen in the game... live. But this one was different.
I don't know what happened before the conclusion of the event, and I don't care enough to research. And to be honest, I don't think anybody does. But that didn't matter. At the end of the event, the entire game was sucked into a black hole. Everything, the menus, user interface, everything. It was a really well made sequence. But the thing that made this event special was that it kept going. Anybody who opened the game would just see a black hole. There was a secret minigame, and occasionally numbers would appear on screen, which could be decoded using old Tweets. I don't know, I wasn't interested in the lore.
The black hole didn't stop, it kept going. Fortnite blacked out all of their social media accounts. And the black hole just kept appearing on everyone's screen. There was so much mystery around it. So many people were talking about it that it caused Fortnite to hit it's current peak on Google Trends. Everyone at school was talking about it. Even people who didn't care about video games were talking about it. And it just kept going on. The black hole was there for 37 hours. But people didn't know that. Everyone thought Fortnite was ending.
After the black hole, chapter 2 came out. This was basically a complete reimagining of the game. The UI was different, there were only a few weapons, there was a whole new map, swimming, new gameplay mechanics, so much. And it got me interested again, at least until chapter 2, season 2, when I stopped playing for good.
Like once every 3 months, I'll play Fortnite for 2 hours, then not touch it for another 3 months. And it wasn't just Fortnite. So much was happening in my life, I not only lost my enjoyment for Fortnite, but gaming in general. Fortnite was my last big interest.
Almost a year ago, Fortnite announced that they were bringing back the old season 5 map. This caused people to get really excited. People were saying that this was like being a chance to go back to childhood. I don't think that much time passed since chapter 5, but whatever. So, I started playing again. And although the game wasn't the exact same, it was still fairly similar. There was a lot of quality of life changes, like grabbing onto ledges, a no build mode, and new sprinting mechanics. A lot of fun.
However, after about 2 weeks, I kind of stopped caring again. I played with one friend in person, but that's it. Fortnite is only so fun when you're playing alone. I thought that would be the end, but then they announced Peter Griffin. I don't think they could of made a better choice.
The new Fortnite is kinda fun. There are a lot of systems I don't like, such as bot players, but it's such a different game that it becomes interesting. There isn't much else to say about it. It's just fun. With that being said, much more changed about the game than just the battle royale mode. Now, there are a whole bunch of Roblox quality minigames (derogatory) made by the community. They also introduced new modes, like a racing mode, Lego Fortnite, and a Guitar Hero clone. Most people stopped playing these after release.
Fortnite is more fun than ever right now, but the game seems to be going in the wrong direction. They stopped using their iconic font, the Fortnite font as it's known, in terms of something more modern. And I'm afraid the game is just going to turn into another Roblox. Nobody asked for that.