It’s Time, ‘Fortnite’ Needs An Entirely New Map For Season 11 To Shake Things Up

Fortnite

Epic

I have made no secret about the fact that I have very much disliked Fortnite season 10, the first minor reason because they keep making me call it “season X.” But past that, a lot has gone wrong from changes to challenges to the addition of the mech. I did sort of like the battle pass which goes back and updates some classic skins, though I’m less wild about the travels back in time with new map POIs every week with ‘wacky’ effects.

Fans have been rumbling for a while that they wonder if all of this is heading toward a grand finale where Fortnite is doing this tour through the last ten seasons in order to set up for something completely new. As in, an entirely new map.

Recent datamining has unearthed a number of new locations, marked with the same alliterative pattern as current locations, “Holly Hedges,” “Beachy Bluffs” and such. But there are a lot of them, 11 in total, more than would normally be added in any singular new season, which usually only sees about 2-3 new named spots. 11 is just over half the current number of named locations on the entire map.

Some of these, Sunny Shores, Weeping Woods, Lazy Lake and others feel like modifications of current zones, so it’s possible that if there’s a new map, it still may retain some elements of the old one. Albeit it may show up with larger transformations overall than we’ve ever seen.

Fortnite

Epic

The Visitor is now building a new rocket at Dusty Depot, the same kind of rocket that opened the first rift and set the last six seasons of Fortnite in motion. It stands to reason that something could happen like A) the rocket blows up the whole map and it's rebuilt into a new island or B) the rocket does something wacky like pull the entire island into a parallel universe, hence the different names.

Yes, it’s true that Fortnite fans have been predicting a new map for ages now. The meteor, the volcano, the monster, the Cube, all were supposed to explode or destroy the island, but instead they just modified it.

But now? I can see it.

This world tour does in many ways feel like a farewell to the current island with all the time warps back to earlier zones, a victory lap, if you will. And the existing island has modified just about all it can at this point. The north east, south east and south west corners have been hugely transformed over the past few seasons, which only leaves the north west Junk Junction/Haunted Hills/Pleasant Park area (mostly) untouched. I suppose the rocket could just alter that area, but at this point, after ten seasons, yeah, I do think it’s time to pull the trigger on another map, and say goodbye to this one we’ve worn ragged at this point.

The only remaining unmolested part of the map

Epic

A new map would spice up gameplay as everyone figures out the new best zones and map rotation strategies to employ. It would make challenges interesting for the first time in ages because no one will know where anything is (a blessing for guide-writers like me). It’s time.

I fully believe that Epic has it in them to design an entirely new map. They have essentially skipped an entire season of map additions as no big new area was added to the map, only select POIs were brought back or created for this season. And I know Epic works hard on the current map, but designing a new Fortnite island should probably not be outside the realm of possibility after ten seasons and billions of dollars in revenue.

My guess is that a new map would fully replace the old map, and we’re not going to get into a PUBG multiple map situation. I would also expect perhaps a greater presence of fan-generated content past what we see in The Block right now as Epic continues to push Creative Mode.

Fortnite needs a shot in the arm right now and I think a new map would do the trick for at least a few seasons. And heading into this fall when it will likely lose more eyeballs than ever, it needs to make a splash to stay relevant. And more in-game concerts or monster attacks won’t do it. A new map would. Let’s see it.

Follow me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Read my new sci-fi thriller novel Herokiller, available now in print and online. I also wrote The Earthborn Trilogy.

Tweet