Fortnite’s new rifts are slowly consuming the map

Saturday’s rocket launch seems to be the start of a larger mystery unfolding in Fortnite. After the events of the weekend, dimensional rifts have appeared all across the map — including a larger tear overlooking everything down below. Not only are these rifts getting bigger, they’re also starting to have an effect on the island.

The subtle spread is easy to miss, but players like Reddit user Discount_Pringles are already compiling pictures that show how the rifts are progressing:

Photo: Discount_Pringles

The growth by itself isn’t particularly exciting; last season’s comet event also had a slow progression. What’s curious is that the smaller rifts near specific locales appear to be changing the things around them.

A couple of days ago, the area around Lonely Lodge had its usual sign near the front of the cabin:

If you log in today, though, there’s no sign. Where did it go?

A rift near Anarchy Acres has started to destroy the motel sign there as well:

Nobody knows what any of this means, but the theories out there are wild. One of the most popular ideas floating around is that the portals will involve time travel of some sort. Data miners such as GameCentral_FBR are claiming that the game has updated to have 3D models of the Wild West. Coincidentally, the now-deleted official trailer for Fortnite’s upcoming playground mode also appeared to show an old-timey Wild West scene.

Another data miner, Fortisen, has found a number of props from varying time periods as well:

These could be completely unrelated — perhaps the LTM will simply give players more types of objects to mess around with. Players are leaning toward some sort of time travel theory, however, partially because of a skin introduced this season. Called “The Visitor,” it is an outfit of a robotic-looking character that doesn’t look like anyone else in the game. As the rocket launch last weekend was followed up with a spaceship zipping across the map that seemed to create the phenomena, players believe the Visitor might have somehow caused a rift in the space-time continuum.

Whatever this means, Fortnite has continued to maintain the enormous momentum introduced by last season’s comet, as most players are thrilled to try to solve the newest mystery.