We’re inching closer and closer to Fortnite season 3, like an oversized secret agent slowly crawling their way through a vent, and we’re excited like crazy to see what Epic is adding to the battle royale formula.
From some early leaks, we know some sort of doomsday device will play a significant role in transitioning us to Fortnite season 3. Like any new season, Epic has remained particularly quiet before any official news is made public, so that leaves us and a bunch of data miners to do all the digging.
So I’ve gone ahead and broken down everything we know about Fortnite season 3 for you below, including when it starts, the kinds of map changes I’m hoping for, plus the latest battle pass details, event clues, and more.
When is Fortnite season 3 coming out?
After the astonishingly long inaugural season of Fortnite Chapter 2 (which went from October 2019 to February 20, 2020), it’s great to see Fortnite move back towards quicker seasonal changes, right?
Wrong. Epic announced in April that season 2 would no longer end on April 30. Instead, The Fortnite season 2 end date is June 4. Assuming Epic doesn’t have any strange delay between seasons, that means that the Fortnite season 3 release date is June 4.
Thankfully, that’s still not as long season 1, but it’s cutting it a little close. It’s basically an extra month and change added to the season. Epic says plenty more updates and new gameplay features are on the way, so at least it won’t be a total ghost town. Still, we can probably look forward to some griping from players who desperately need a change of pace by then.
That said, at time of writing, the world has been largely frozen in place thanks to the coronavirus disruption that has forced many companies to tell their employees to work from home. This includes Fortnite developer Epic Games, who also skipped out on E3 thanks to concerns over coronavirus. According to the News & Observer, North Carolina (where Epic’s primary headquarters is located) is under a stay-in-place order.
That all means Fortnite season 3 might not happen as smoothly as previous transitions, so maybe we’ll need to cut Epic a little slack. You heard me, internet. With Epic likely under all the same social distancing and shutdown guidelines as most other companies, odds are their workflow isn’t nearly as productive, and parts of the development team could potentially struggle to meet due dates without their full suite of resources.
To their credit, Epic has been pretty good about implementing season 2’s regular updates smoothly, and the Travis Scott concert event was a huge success, so points for them.
Update (May 11):
Data miners HypeX and KleinMike leaked a video of the long-rumored doomsday device as it will appear in the in-game menu. You can see the doomsday device behind Midas when viewing his private room. It looks like a giant glass ball, almost like one of those electricity/plasma globe toys. The wires run across the entire agent base, including the main menu, one of which you can already see above the wall that you click to open your battle pass.
I managed to enable all the cables so here is a video showing where they will appear, i’ll try to get a closer soon soon! pic.twitter.com/zcQHV2jRYSMay 8, 2020
HypeX added that the doomsday device will eventually start glowing purple, and smoke will begin to bellow out of it.
Update (May 5):
Some players have started noticing puddles appearing around the island, at least one of which is the same shape as the original Fortnite map.
⚜️#News⚜️ 🇮🇹 In giro per la mappa stanno apparendo alcune pozzanghere!🇬🇧 Around the map some puddles are appearing! #Fortnite pic.twitter.com/fL6tXTYlEfMay 5, 2020
These new puddles would appear to point towards the popular theory that a large flood (or at least some new body of water) will play a major role in Fortnite season 3. I’d seriously doubt that we return to the original Fortnite map after only two seasons of our current battle royale island, but Epic isn’t above pulling some familiar locations and planting them around the map, like Pleasant Park or Risky Reels.
Update for April 29:
We’ve got our first official teaser posters for season 3, as discovered by data miner FortTory.
FortTory was also quick to point out that the umbrella logo on each of the posters is the same found on the No Sweat Insurance building in Lazy Lake. Could it be that more season 3 event details will develop there? I never did meet an insurance agent I could trust.
It was once theorized that season 2 would feature a flood affecting the world map, but it now looks like season 3 might be the one that features more water. We did also get a look at the underwater swimming animation as part of the Travis Scott concert, so Epic has clearly accounted for allowing players to go beneath the waves.
Update (April 15):
It appears the hatches beneath the Agency have started glowing. It’s lead some players to speculate that these hatches will play a role with the supposed doomsday device on the way. Is something being built underneath the Agency?
The island has also changed a couple of other locations, which may hold future secrets. The Shark has now been turned into a prison, and just outside the Shark is a separate, tiny island with a single jail cell inside. Speculation on that one is that the cell is for Midas, considering the Shark prison has a bunch of Ghost faction logos all over it.
Update (April 6):
According to Fortnite Intel, data miners have discovered that images of the Vault (yes, that Loot Lake Vault) have appeared on screens on the island, suggesting Chapter 1 might come back to haunt Chapter 2 in some way.
Reddit user Koooooomar found that on some of the screens at the Shark and the Yacht, a faint image of a circle can be seen. Could the circle be Loot Lake?
And lastly, it looks like a countdown is on the way sometime soon.
So this got added: – Doomsday Device – Doomsday Hatch – Doomsday DoorThere are five from these at the Agency! pic.twitter.com/45ecFl7AjYMarch 31, 2020
How much will the Fortnite Season 3 battle pass cost?
As far as we know, the Fortnite season 3 battle pass should cost the standard 950 V-Bucks for the regular edition, and the Battle Bundle edition will cost you 2,500 V-Bucks. The Battle Bundle edition will automatically let you skip the first 25 tiers of the battle pass.
The smallest bundle of V-Bucks you can purchase is still 1,000 V-Bucks, which comes out to $9.99 USD. The next highest package is 2,800 V-Bucks, worth $24.99. You can always consult our guide on how to safely get free Fortnite V-Bucks if you don’t feel like paying hard cash for it.