Fortnite pulled off a brief but spectacular finale - and now the world waits
Twitch and Mixer struggle as millions watch live.
Tonight, Fortnite waved farewell to its first 10 seasons, the initial chapter of its story, and its entire map - all in one enormous live event watched by millions.
More than 4.2 million viewers watched the game's final moments on Twitch before the streaming platform buckled under the strain. Mixer users reported significant slowdown there also. At least 1.5m more were watching on YouTube. The game is currently the top trending topic on Twitter worldwide.
Fortnite is now down, its map gone, the game unplayable. Load up the game and you'll see only the following screen, as fans wait for whatever comes next:
Here's what happened.
For the past season, locations past and present have appeared across the Fortnite island. Back from an alternate future, rocket ship captain The Visitor has been attempting to fix the game's timeline after the Zero Point detonated following the game's season nine monster battle. Audio logs released over the past week suggested he had finally found a way.
Tonight's action began with the launch of the Visitor's new ship, which was quickly joined by those of the six other Visitor variants from other timelines referenced in the audio logs. As the seven spacecraft rifted around the island, gathering momentum, they eventually zapped away the comet left hanging, frozen in time, above Dusty Depot.
For a moment, it looked as if the island had been saved - but then the ships and meteor returned above Loot Lake and the Vault's Zero Point, slamming into it in a huge explosion. As the Zero Point finally became unstuck in time, players were flung far above the island and away - able to see the Zero Point gobble up the island and then suck everything back in, Battle Bus and all, as if into a black hole.
And it's there, after a short wait, players and viewers found themselves - watching the black hole, and Fortnite, left on that cliffhanger.
Epic Games even provided a smaller scale version of the ending if you were simply in the game's main menu. Note the UI getting sucked into the black hole as well - it's a lovely touch.
Of course, thanks to last week's App Store leak, we know Fortnite will now rebrand for its next season as Fortnite: Chapter 2. Our first glimpse at Fortnite: Chapter 2's new map - complete with boats - crept out online just before the weekend.
There's no word yet on when the game will deploy its Chapter 2 patch, and when Fortnite will come back online.
In the meantime, enter the Konami code while watching the black hole and you'll get another chance to while away the hours playing Fortnite's Vidcurry mini-game.