Players know that winter is coming to Fortnite, and they have been able to see a storm brewing on the horizon for a little while now by looking to the south of the map.
But today’s update has made the storm draw closer, and has revealed that actually, it’s not a storm at all.
What looks like a storm is actually a cloud concealing an iceberg which appears to be drifting toward the Fortnite map in an inevitable collision course. It’s hard to see with the naked eye, as this was the best shot I could snag of it in the game, but you can see the base of it and the ice around it.
But here’s what players who have gotten closer have seen, as you can clearly see it’s an iceberg.
But wait, there’s more! Going into full hacker mode, a player surfed all the way out there and managed to give a super clear picture of what’s there. The iceberg actually has a tiny castle turret on top of it. You can’t interact with the iceberg or castle, it’s not a solid object, but this has some potentially huge implications.
The idea is that this isn’t a storm or an iceberg, but instead a floating castle. What seems likely is that we are only seeing the top of it, and the rest is frozen underneath. When it arrives, we may see it melt over time as spring gets closer, revealing more and more of what’s underneath.
This lines up with some past hints. We have seen a castle in Epic-released footage in the far distance a long time ago. If you peer into the rifts, it seems like you can see part of a castle at the right angle. And now this. So, it very much seems like a castle is coming. This is kind of weird because we just got a big haunted castle as part of the season 6 update, so…another castle? I mean sure, okay.
I also wonder about the implications of an iceberg/castle crashing into the island potentially. Could we see a chunk of the map destroyed as a result? Or will the castle simply drift toward the south edge and attach itself? Or is it a magic castle that’s going to be able to float like Cube Island and drift toward a specific spot?
I’m also wondering what, if anything the stalking AIM robot we’ve seen lurking around the map has to do with…an ice castle, but it’s possible the two aren’t related and this is just Fortnite being cryptic as per usual.
Still, the reveal that this is more than just a snowstorm about to blanket the map with a blizzard is very cool, and I will be curious to see what happens when it arrives. I have a hunch it’s not going to instantly appear next week when season 7 launches unless it starts moving very, very quickly, so it may be a few weeks before our new castle friend arrives. Stay tuned.
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