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A rookie's Guide to Fortnite's Zero Point storyline... so far

Are you bamboozled by the Zero Point storyline? Allow us to help fix that.

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The latest season of Fortnite's battle royale mode is now out and available to play, and while a lot of longtime Fortnite fans have probably already explored all the island has to offer, uncovering and learning more about the game's lore along the way, I found myself at an impasse. I like to think of myself as more of an avid follower to Fortnite, and because of this, I often miss a lot of the comings and goings of the lore that is added in each season, so when I dove back into the game and was met with a flashy cinematic and a unique single player experience, a lot of the excitement was lost on me due to the lack of sense it made.

To rectify that issue, I decided to hit the books and research how we ended up at this point in the Zero Point storyline, producing this rudimentary timeline of the most crucial events in Fortnite's Zero Point lore along the way.

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Chapter 1 Season 8 - May 4, 2019 - The Unvaulting Event

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If you've been around the scene for a while now, you might remember this event. It asked players to head into a vault nestled right in the centre of Loot Lake to choose a previously vaulted item or weapon that would be reintroduced into the game. This was actually the first time we had seen the Zero Point - despite it being mentioned briefly a few times beforehand. This version of the Zero Point was a stable energy source tucked away behind Singularity's (a skin in the game) desk, and wasn't mentioned again until the end of Season 9.

Chapter 1 Season 9 - July 20, 2019 - The Final Showdown Event

Fortnite has become known for crazy events that conclude its seasons, but one of the all-time greatest was The Final Showdown that pitted a giant mech robot (Mecha) against an alien creature known as the Devourer. In this event, the Devourer began to bust open the vault in Loot Lake to get to the Zero Point locked within, only to be ambushed by Mecha. As its way of defeating the monster, Mecha ended up punching through the vault, using the energy from the Zero Point to take down the beast. This in turn caused the Zero Point to destabilise and grow in size until Season X began soon after.

Chapter 1 Season X - August 1, 2019 and The End Event - October 13, 2019

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Season X was Epic's way of concluding the first iteration of the battle royale mode, and it saw several call-backs from previous seasons, thanks to a strange time-bending continuum due to the Zero Point's expansion. Over the course of the season, a bunch of previous locations and events were brought back to the game in one way or another, before it all culminated with The End event - the very live event that essentially broke the internet.

The End saw a rocket commanded by The Visitor (another skin/character from the game) crash into the Zero Point, sending players high into the sky and creating a mega rift at the same time. Then to make matters worse, a bunch of other rockets piloted by The Seven (a group of beings we still know very little about) also collided with the Zero Point causing it to explode much more violently, filling the island with stars. The Zero Point then proceeded to collapse into a black hole, sucking everyone and everything into it, and remaining this way for several days.

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Chapter 2 Season 1 - October 15, 2019

Following the downtime, the Zero Point black hole had re-stabilised leading to a new big bang. The map of Fortnite had been remade using the memories of the previous one. Even though this event was a wild one and a great start to a new era of Fortnite, the Zero Point storyline took a little bit of a break... until Season 4 that is.

Chapter 2 Season 4 - August 27, 2020 and The Devourer of Worlds Event - December 1, 2020

This season was another landmark one for the battle royale as it probably marked its most impressive crossover to date - a complete season dedicated to Marvel. The concept of this season was to help The Avengers defeat Galactus, who had set his sights on consuming the Zero Point, which had up until this moment waited patiently deep underground with little disturbance.

Galactus' plan is to consume the Zero Point to harness its power, and with the help of Iron Man, Thor and Wolverine, we had to participate in the largest live event in the game's history to stop the enormous villain. It involved crashing loads of Battle Buses into Galactus' mouth, to stop him from finishing eating the Zero Point and causing a reality meltdown, and while players were successful, it did cause the Zero Point to become incredibly unstable.

This was also when we were shown off the first look at Agent Jones, a character who is key to the Zero Point storyline thereafter.

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Chapter 2 Season 5 - December 2, 2020

The recently concluded season was known for its massive list of crossovers, and even divulged a bunch more Zero Point lore thanks to handy audio files being shared over social media among other things.

Due to Galactus' efforts, the Zero Point had become very unstable and started doing strange things to the Fortnite island, including opening up several portals of which hunters from other franchises and series were recruited by Agent Jones from - i.e. Master Chief, Kratos, Sarah Connor and Ellen Ripley. Because of Jones' reality hopping, the Zero Point became increasingly unstable until it began pulsating every two minutes towards the end of the season, which brings us to the present.

Chapter 2 Season 6 - March 16, 2021

With the Zero Point collapsing once again, Agent Jones springs into action, disobeying the orders of his boss (we are told is called Doctor Slone) and instead seemingly looking to call upon the mysterious group The Seven. Using a strange Rift Gun contraption to stop the decay, and the aid of his many recruited hunters to protect him from the savages in the battle royale (I'm looking at you Mancake), Jones makes his way to the Zero Point and stops the collapse, right as a member of The Seven known as The Foundation makes an appearance.

After making a deal with one another that sees The Foundation help Jones fix the Zero Point in return for getting him to a distant world called Geno (we have no idea what or where that is), we're plunged into a short singleplayer mission. This mission tasks us with closing a series of portals to stop the Zero Point from once again collapsing, and as we're completing the goals, reality proceeds to frequently shift, turning us into Lara Croft, Cluck the buff chicken and Raz (two new in-game skins).

Even though we are successful in halting the collapse once again, The Foundation has to lock itself away within the Zero Point to ensure it doesn't decay any further or likely explode again, and ultimately a strange metallic formation grows around the Zero Point, which we know in-game as The Spire.

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That brings us up to today. The Zero Point storyline doesn't seem to be over, although there's no way of knowing whether it will continue to spurt out lore over the course of this season, or whether we'll be taking another break for the time being. As Season 6 progresses, we'll likely know the answer to that question sooner than later.

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