Fortnite shocked the world when it literally imploded earlier this week, leaving only a black hole in its wake. Then, on Tuesday, Fortnite Chapter 2 sprung forth from the aether, with a fresh slate of content, including a new, unseen island for players to explore. Or, it was thought unseen, until the realization it had been leaked on Reddit in September, just nobody thought it was real.
An image of the map was posted to the Fortnite subreddit r/fortnitecompetitive several weeks ago. At the time, everyone just turned a blind eye, believing it another over-zealous piece of fan-art, using the location names from a previous data-mine, and the poster’s claim to have a friend working at Epic didn’t stir much credibility.
Several reposts were all heavily downvoted, and the image’s inclusion in a round-up by Reddit user FaZeNiccorazi (thanks, Eurogamer) still didn’t convince anyone. It wasn’t until Fortnite news and leaks reporter Hypex got behind it just two weeks ago that people starting taking the map seriously, to which someone claiming to be the original poster decried it as a fake they made in photoshop.
It’s since come to light that the leak is almost identical to the released version, bar a couple of tweaks to some locations. Speaking to Eurogamer, the original poster was spooked by Epic becoming aware of the leak, hence trying to persuade everyone it was all a hoax.
The whole incident is fascinating on two fronts: first, seeing an in-progress version gives us some minor insight into Epic’s design process, and second, it begs the question what other nuggets of information on upcoming releases is just laying dormant in a forum somewhere.
In any case, you can have a look at Fortnite Chapter 2’s map for real by playing the game right now.