Every Fortnite Live Event You Missed

The game we all call Fortnite has changed the gaming landscape in innumerable ways. It's an undeniable fact. Most of the world wouldn't know who the heck Ninja is, for instance, if not for Epic Games' shooter. Kids wouldn't be driving their teachers crazy in class, turning their smartphones into tiny Fortnite machines that keep the battle royale raging on.

And many game development studios wouldn't be trying to copy everything that Fortnite does right.

That's right. For all of the insanity that seems to surround the Fortnite movement at times, the game has had many positive impacts on the way we play games. Online multiplayer titles that release with zero post-launch support are not good enough anymore. Fortnite set the standard for how to keep a game world alive, fresh, and interesting, releasing regular patches as well as adding new in-game events that change the way the Fortnite world appears. And the game's free-to-play model — one that relies on purely cosmetic loot — ensures that Fortnite is as fun and fair for those who don't buy anything as it is for those who purchase every skin in the game.

But undoubtedly, what draws everyone into Fortnite, and what keeps them logging in on certain special days, has to be the game's live events. And below, we've listed every single one that's happened so far.

Here is every Fortnite live event you missed.

By the time Fortnite's first world event appeared, the game had already cemented itself as one of the most popular games in existence. Twitch streamers made it one of the most-watched titles. The game's free-to-play nature meant anyone could jump in, which drove Fortnite's player count upward substantially. And, sure, Fortnite was basically piggybacking off of a game mode made popular by PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds. But the building aspect of Fortnite gave that game's take on the genre an interesting twist.

We had no idea, though, that Epic Games had much more in store for the Fortnite audience.

We got a glimpse of Fortnite's future when a meteor appeared in the sky, leading players to speculate over several weeks what exactly it all could mean. Players traded conspiracies about what the meteor represented. They tried to guess where it might land. And when the meteor eventually came crashing down and obliterated what was previously known as Dusty Depot, the game had changed. A large crater engulfed a portion of the map renamed as Dusty Divot, and Epic showed everyone the true potential of Fortnite: a game that is constantly evolving, telling a story not through a narrative campaign, but through the changes that affect its world.

For many months, a rocket ship sat on the map inside Fortnite: Battle Royale, leading many to wonder if the ship was a functioning spacecraft that might one day take off, or little more than a prop. After the meteor event, though, players had more of a sense of what Epic Games might do with some of the clues it left in the game. And once the company started teasing a large event for a weekend back in June 2018, players instantly had their eyes on that rocket.

As it turns out, they were right.

Players camped out all over Fortnite's map in anticipation of the event, and when the hour came, that preparation was well worth it. Players got a good look at the rocket's launch, witnessing the craft's ascent into the sky. And then viewers got another treat. The ship came falling back down to earth and buzzed around the entirety of Fortnite's map, zipping in and out of interdimensional rifts.

The ship eventually came to rest inside Dusty Divot, the site of the meteor crash from Fortnite's first event. One giant purple rift remained in the sky. And then something even weirder happened.

The now-dormant rocket ship appeared to teleport all over the Fortnite map, entering one rift and exiting out another. But when it finished — when it finally came to a stop inside Dusty Divot — it was time for Fortnite's Season 5 to kick off. And along with a slew of new cosmetic loot options came a pretty dramatic shift to the way Fortnite: Battle Royale was played. Because in the past, traversing the landscape in Fortnite was a rather cumbersome activity. But now the game had what amounted to a fast-travel system.

It came in the form of rifts.

Rifts basically offered players a way to quickly teleport from one location to another. When stepping into a rift, players were instantly placed into the sky nearby, giving them an opportunity to glide to another area of the map. Rifts became useful in game thanks to the way they allowed players to reposition themselves — something that became increasingly important as the storm circle shrank — and the fact that the rifts could be tied to the overarching, in-game narrative made them even cooler.

Little did players know, however, that there would be even more strangeness coming in the not-too-distant future.

Remember that giant purple rift in the sky? The one left there after the rocket ship had visited all corners of the Fortnite map before shutting down inside Dusty Divot? It turns out that Fortnite wasn't quite done telling that story yet. Because in late August 2018, a flurry of lightning strikes began to hit a certain point on the map, eventually creating a huge purple cube that could push players back if they touched it, damage them if they shot it, and heal them if they simply stood next to it.

The Fortnite community couldn't let the cube go without a title. So they affectionately called it Kevin. And the name stuck.

After Kevin the Cube came into existence, it rolled all over the Fortnite: Battle Royale map, leaving runes on the ground in random places. And it also took a detour through the Tilted Towers area of the map, bowling over a building that had been previously under construction. No one knew what the cube was. No one had any idea why the cube was leaving runes everywhere. And no one had a good theory as to when — or if — the cube would stop rolling.

It did eventually stop rolling, though. But it wasn't done messing with the map.

If there's one thing that Fortnite players don't enjoy, it's making the trek across Loot Lake. Trying to traverse through the lake's knee-high waters will slow you down significantly, and in a game like Fortnite, being slow gives you a much better shot at being dead. So it's almost always better to go around Loot Lake when trying to make your way to the Storm's safe zone. At least, that's what the golden rule is most of the time.

But that wasn't true back in September 2018, when Kevin the Cube rolled itself into Loot Lake.

When Kevin hit Loot Lake, something very interesting happened. The lake's water ceased to exist, and instead, a bouncy surface with a purple hue took its place. This was a fairly big change for a crucial part of the map, and it made traveling over the lake a much faster experience. But players knew that Loot Lake couldn't possibly stay this way forever. There had to be some kind of next step for Kevin the Cube — some next chapter that would move the story ahead, and likely introduce another major change to Fortnite.

That change came at the start of Season 6.

When Fortnite's Season 6 kicked off in late September 2018, it brought quite a bit of transformation to the game's map. Kevin the Cube, which hadn't been seen for quite some time, was now very much visible. The cube had attached itself to Loot Lake's island, lifting it into the sky. And Loot Lake itself was no longer bouncy. It did, however, appear to be rather disrupted by the chunk of land the Kevin Cube stole from it.

And Kevin wasn't done there.

Kevin the Cube transported the Loot Lake island all over the map, visiting all of the areas that Kevin had originally marked with runes. It soaked up the power from those runes, eventually returning back to Loot Lake (which had since been renamed Leaky Lake). After that, Kevin the Cube generated a giant portal in the sky that could be seen from all over. It was an obvious sign that something big was about to happen again. It was just a matter of when.

It started with an explosion from Kevin the Cube. A small one, just powerful enough to split the Loot Lake island into three, with Kevin the Cube underneath them, holding all three pieces in suspension. And then came the cracks, which rippled through Kevin the Cube and caused a purple liquid to drop down into the lake. Finally, in early November, the spinning started. Kevin the Cube made rotation after rotation, rapidly picking up speed. 

And then the cube exploded.

It didn't matter if you were perched on a nearby hilltop watching the show, or if you were firing on an opponent in hopes of bringing home a Victory Royale. When Kevin the Cube exploded, everything else disappeared. All players on the map were transported into a sort of alternate dimension, where they all floated around weaponless and teamless — just experiencing whatever was happening. Eventually, a rift in the shape of a butterfly visited each player, sending them back to the map, which had once again changed.

Loot-slash-Leaky Lake was now dramatically different. Small patches of land now dotted the lake. And Kevin the Cube, which had baffled players for months, was destroyed. But a tribute to the cube still exists — a Stonehenge-esque monument made of its remains — at the center of the lake.

As we stated when this story first broke, changes to the map usually don't happen by accident. Epic Games knows that there is a dedicated community of players and content creators who play the game every single day. They're constantly scouring the map for clues about what could be coming down the pipeline. And when something seems out of the ordinary, they notice it. And they report it to everyone else.

That's what happened when a strange storm cloud appeared in the southern region of the game's map.

When the cloud was discovered by Reddit users in late November 2018, there was a consensus that this would — to borrow a line from Game of Thrones — play a part in the wars to come. After all, the winter season was just around the bend, and Fortnite already had a history of introducing major world changes. Add that to the fact that players discovering something amiss with the game's rifts — that they could peer into them and see what looked like an ice castle on the other side — and it seemed almost certain that there was more to the story of the storm cloud.

And there was.

Many suspected that the storm cloud would eventually make its way toward the playable space on the island. And sure enough, that's what happened. And as that storm cloud drew closer to the main area, players were shocked to discover that the cloud wasn't harboring a storm at all. Instead, when the clouds parted, a giant iceberg was revealed.

And even the iceberg wasn't the biggest surprise.

Over time, as the iceberg seemed almost certain to run into the Fortnite island, players managed to make out a castle on top of its highest peak. This was no ordinary iceberg, it seemed, but was one that had an occupant — one that acted almost as a vehicle for this being to travel to the Battle Royale battlefields.

The iceberg eventually struck the island, completely destroying Flush Factory and freezing the Greasy Grove area of the map in the process. But there were still more surprises in store for the Fortnite community. And at least one more mystery to be cracked.

After the iceberg hit the island, destroyed one area of the map, and brought colder-than-usual temperatures to another, many players were still highly suspicious. There was that castle on top of the iceberg, after all, and it didn't stand to reason that there'd be a castle on top of an iceberg for no reason. It belonged to someone. Something more was on the horizon. And sure enough, another in-game riddle presented itself soon after, when a giant ice sphere arrived and set up shop in the sky above the island.

And then it just sat there.

Many believed that no good could come out of the ice sphere. And many more looked for clues as to what the ice sphere could be containing within, or what kind of havoc it could wreak across the map. Still, no one could quite nail down what Epic Games had planned for the ice sphere or the rest of the Fortnite world.

Fortunately, players didn't have to wait very long to get an answer.

That ice sphere did indeed hold some evil in it. Those who guessed that the ice sphere was a bad thing? They were right. Because when the ice sphere opened in late January 2019, it revealed the Ice King — a menacing figure that draws obvious parallels to the Night King in Game of Thrones.

And when the Ice King revealed himself to the world, he brought trouble with him in the form of a massive blizzard and horde of frozen enemies.

The Ice King covered every inch of the map with snow, creating a nightmarish winter landscape. And then there were the enemies, called Ice Fiends, which began to make their presence known by spawning out of blue stones all across the Fortnite island. There were a whole lot of new and highly sought after loot items that came with the winter event. But the real draw here was the way Epic Games got players hyped up about a potential change to the world, the way the company delivered, and the way Epic seems determined to keep this approach to game support going.

As dramatic as the Ice King moment was, though, it might have to take a backseat to this next one.

It started with some in-game teasing — some posters put up in random places around the map. The rumors picked up steam when the artist himself listed a Fortnite location as one of his upcoming tour locations. And finally, it was confirmed to be real, and expected to be something that changed video games forever.

It was a live DJ set performed by popular artist Marshmello. And it took place entirely inside Fortnite: Battle Royale.

To give Epic Games credit, the company went all out to really nail down the concert experience. Marshmello's stage was truly impressive. Fortnite had a whole bunch of Marshmello-related loot that players could obtain and wear while attending the concert. And when all was said and done, and the numbers had been tallied, it was reported that over 10 million players had logged in to watch Marshmello spin. And that's just counting the player base! Even more tuned in on streaming sites like Twitch in order to catch the concert through other means.

Marshmello had nothing but good things to say about the concert, which gave people who'd never attended a show ever to do so for the very first time. And the success of the event almost surely means that we'll see something similar happen in the future.