Fortnite tries to recapture its golden era by returning to Chapter 1

Epic Games has announced that Fortnite is headed back to Chapter 1 in its next major update.

Epic Games teased the throwback event on Twitter: “Sprint (or Mantle, your choice) back to Chapter 1… see you soon.” The accompanying battle bus image lists November 3 as the update’s launch date, together with “#FortniteOG” - seemingly teasing the return of the battle royale game’s original map.

Rumors about the map’s return have been circulating for some time now, with Epic boss Mark Rein tweeting just yesterday: “My word for the next season of [Fortnite] is: rewind!” A tease that has all the subtlety of a sledgehammer raining down on bricks. As our Fortnite Season 5 guide explains, the update has been leaked and speculated about for a while now.

Epic is seemingly trying to recapture the game’s glory days - back when the building-defense hybrid had just transformed into the mammoth battle royale that it is today. Popular streamers have also been clued into the new (old?) chapter. The “OG Squad” that consists of Ninja, TimtheTatman, CourageJD, and DRLupo all posed together in a social media post yesterday, before Epic’s official announcement, saying “The return of Fortnite Chapter 1 means only one thing…”

The return to the early days is supposedly being facilitated by some timey-wimey in-universe shenanigans, although I’m interested in seeing if any other older maps are rotated into the game. Perhaps there can be a kind of ‘Fortnite over the years’ theme. I’m guessing that classic cosmetics might return via the battle pass, too, but that’s just speculation.

Epic Games recently made headlines for laying off 830 employees due to missed profit targets. While that didn’t push back plans for Fortnite, the company said that some projects “may not ship when planned because they are under-resourced for the time being.” Though the company still plans on chasing a metaverse future.

Here’s how to complete Fortnite quests in Season 4 Chapter 4.