On Tuesday, May 1, the popular third person shooter game Fortnite released version 4.0. The version, also known as ‘Season 4’ to many players (including the game’s staff), has been worked on for months by the game’s developers. With loads of leaks, teasers and fan theories, Fortnite Season 4 has been the most anticipated update yet.

The game’s producer, Epic Games, has created many games in the past who have been successful such as ‘Paragon,’ ‘Gears of War’ and ‘Shadow Complex,’ but Fortnite exploded as soon as it became free to the public. Luring in celebrities such as Steeler football player JuJu Smith Schuster, and singer songwriter Drake, Fortnite has set many records on media broadcast systems such as YouTube and Twitch.

The game involves a game of 100 players skydiving out of a bus and searching an island for weapons, medication and traps. The focus of the game is to be the last one standing, so players want to find the best loot they can find before they find someone else to fight. There are many locations to skydive into, the most popular one being called ‘Tilted Towers,’ in which almost 50% of each game supposedly starts off their game at the location due to there being better loot at the location, attracting a high death count early on in the game.

“I normally don’t go there because I know the chances of making it out of there are minimal,” freshman Matthew Sherrill said.

What got fans most excited about this season was what started out as a fan theory, then turned into reality, the ‘formation of a virtual meteor’ hitting the game’s map. The theory originated as a meteor hitting the most popular location in the game, ‘Tilted Towers.’ What got fans excited was that this theory made sense, in the fact they believed the Epic Games team was trying to balance out the game and reduce the amount of players starting out in the area each game.

“It had me excited because it would balance out the game, I personally didn’t like Tilted just because it lured so many players,” Sherrill said.

The theory was actually false at first, but as the Epic Games team started hearing about this theory they started working on it, until eventually one player who got into the game’s files found a code that matched one for the meteor. The theory blew up and Epic Games continued to tease the player base by adding morse code to the game which originally stated ‘SOS D 5 418.’

Players thought this meant the meteor would hit on April 18, 2018. This morse code proved to be wrong as the meteor did not hit on April 18, but when Season 4 started players were in for a surprise.

With the start of Season 4, Epic Games fooled everybody and allowed the meteor to hit one of the least populated areas on the map, known as ‘Dusty Depot.’ Season 4 has also released more outfits for players to use while playing the game, making the game more aesthetically interesting. As the season is starting many players are now attracted to where the meteor struck instead of Tilted, so Epic overall achieved their goal.

“I don’t even play to win right now I just play to look at everything new,” Sherrill said.