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Fortnite’s community is convinced the little comet flying through the sky over Tilted Towers will finally hit today.
Or, at least, the comet flying through the sky will hit something today.
The theory began circulating on Reddit and Fortnite forums on Epic Games’ site. The comet barreling through the sky, newly placed telescopes around Tilted Towers and an unusual abundance of loot was placed at the Towers’ base all seemed to support the theory that a world-changing event related to the comet was coming.
One player, who goes by ChlorophyteFTW on the Fortnite forums, gave a more in-depth reason for why Tilted Towers would probably be hit.
They pointed out that players disliked the position of the Towers. Since Tilted Towers is located in the center of the map, it accrues more players than other areas like Greasy Grove, Haunted Hills or the original Wailing Woods and Lonely Lodge. This disrupts the natural flow of the game, ChlorophyteFTW argued. Creating an elaborate story that involved the destruction of Tilted Towers was a clever way for Epic to move the game forward, they said.
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ChlorophyteFTW stressed that it was all a theory, but that didn’t stop Fortnite players from jumping on the bandwagon. The comet grew in size with each passing day, players noted on YouTube and Reddit, but it wasn’t until earlier this week that players suggested Epic Games would use Fortnite’s season three finale as a reason for the comet’s collision. That’s still 12 days away, but other evidence collected by astute Redditors pointed to April 18 as the day everything could happen.
The conspiracy grew when players started reporting random controller vibrations that seemed to correlate to Morse code that spelled out “SOSD5418.” SOS is a common distress code signal; 418 could refer to April 18, and D5 could refer to a point on the Fortnite map that contains Tilted Towers. The Game Theorists, one of the most impressive gaming channels on YouTube that primarily analyzes gaming and game culture, has a new video that sums this up pretty well.
The theory, which is what it remains at this time, only became more believable when players started reporting shooting stars and other comets flying by while playing at Tilted Towers. Players pointed out on Reddit that although the shooting stars flying through the sky have been spotted in the past, it was a random occurrence. Today, however, it’s much more noticeable and become engulfed in flames the closer they come to the planet.
“Before there were shooting stars in Fortnite which occurred randomly,” one Reddit user said. “Now I saw one today while i was playing and so did 2 other reddit users. Could this be fragments of the meteor falling? They also catch fire and disappear like a real meteor.”
“Before there were shooting stars in Fortnite which occurred randomly,” one Reddit user said. “Now I saw one today while i was playing and so did 2 other reddit users. Could this be fragments of the meteor falling? They also catch fire and disappear like a real meteor.”
The Fortnite community is pretty certain that a meteor will hit today, and they’re almost as convinced that Tilted Towers will be hit. Comets are being spotted by players all over the map, not just at Tilted Towers — and they’re making sounds. One Redditor examined the audio ripped from the game on a spectogram and noticed that two popular Fortnite emotes, “Take The L” and “Hootenanny” appeared in the visual wavelengths. Whether or not that’s a nod to what’s about to happen or a clever toll from Epic is unclear.
For now, Tilted Towers remains standing. Players are reportedly heading to the location en masse to try and get a glimpse of what’s happening.
Polygon has reached out to Epic Games for comment on the situation.
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