Skip to main content

‘Fortnite’ cube is burning runes in ground, messing with gravity

*NEW* CUBE JUST LEFT A RUNE! & MOVED SOUTHWEST! FORTNITE BATTLE ROYALE

Epic Games has been doing some weird things in Fortnite as of late, from launching rockets into space to opening up interdimensional rifts. Its latest addition is a large purple cube, and it’s messing with the game’s battle royale map in some bizarre ways.

Recommended Videos

About a week ago, players noticed lightning strike while playing in Fortnite: Battle Royale, and after it dissipated, an enormous cube had been placed on the map and the cracks in the sky above had been removed. The cube initially perplexed players with its status effects, which could kill players who shot it or give them additional shields. They then noticed that an area around the dome appeared to alter gravity, making it lighter and potentially making it an advantageous area to defend during a match.

Please enable Javascript to view this content

Naturally, that wasn’t the last we’d hear of the cube. It is now leaving behind creepy runes burned into the ground and it’s moving from location to location. It’s unclear exactly what the runes mean, but the cube has been moving about once an hour, and some keen-eyed players believe it will eventually destroy the Tilted Towers area of the map. This stems from the runes it’s leaving behind, which, when organized, appear to show the outline of the buildings in that region.

This would hardly be the first time an area in Fortnite has been radically changed by a phenomenon like this. Earlier this year, a meteor crashed and destroyed the Dusty Depot area, transforming it into Dusty Divot, which still exists today. This is certainly one way to keep the battle royale map feeling fresh, though we wouldn’t be opposed to Epic rolling out an entirely new map to go alongside it, as well.

Fortnite recently came to Android devices, and an exclusive skin available on the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 and Tab S4 has even led some players to go to retail stores in the hopes of using demo phones for the purpose of unlocking it. We wouldn’t suggest annoying employees with this request, though we do understand the impulse.

In addition to Android, Fortnite is also available on iOS, PC, Mac, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch.

Gabe Gurwin
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Gabe Gurwin has been playing games since 1997, beginning with the N64 and the Super Nintendo. He began his journalism career…
Lego Fortnite is getting a massive update, including a new game mode
Characters fishing in LEGO Fortnite.

Fortnite's various Lego modes have been around for just under a year, but they remain some of the most popular choices for players. With the one-year anniversary coming up, Epic Games announced a series of significant changes coming to the game type.

To begin with, Lego Fortnite will be renamed Lego Fortnite Odyssey. That's because Lego Fortnite will become the hub for anything Lego-related within the Fortnite ecosystem and provide players with an easy way to start up any Lego game mode.

Read more
Fortnite is finally getting a first-person mode next week
Key art for Fortnite's new first person shooter mode Ballistic.

Fortnite Ballistic, the long-awaited first-person mode for Epic Games' hit battle royale shooter Fortnite, will finally come to the game on December 11.

Epic Games first teased a first-person Fortnite mode in March, but now we have a clearer idea of how it will play. Ballistic is a round-based 5v5 mode with no respawns, similar to competitive shooters like Valorant or Spectre Divide. A team of attackers fights to plant and detonate a Rift Point Device in certain spots on the map, while defenders fight to eliminate the other team before they can do the same. While attackers and defenders will swap their roles after six rounds, Ballistic matches are a best-of-seven affair across both ranked and unranked play.

Read more
It only took 20 minutes for Fortnite OG to pass 1 million players
Fortnite OG Key Art

Fortnite OG isn't exactly a new mode -- it's come and gone several times before. What makes today's rollout special is that Fortnite OG is here to stay, and it's news that has delighted a lot of fans. Players have flocked back to Fortnite to play the nostalgia-riddled modes they remember.

In fact, within a mere 20 minutes of release, Fortnite OG had more than 1 million concurrent players in regular Fortnite and another 270,000 in Zero Build, Polygon reports. For context, that's about 1,822 times the maximum number of players Concord saw. Fortnite has always been a force of nature, but it has recently seen a surge of gamers like never before. As of right now, as we write this story, the game has 3,383,844 players, with its all-time high peak -- yes, of any of the previous years -- coming just five days ago with a whopping 14 million concurrent players.

Read more