Fortnite: What Happened With The Doomsday Device Event?

The big season-concluding event in Fortnite, The Device, finally took place after a series of delays. Unfortunately, server capacity issues forced many players to have to sit this out and stream it online, although the sheer number of people who participated have Epic calling it a big success. With Season 2 of Chapter 2 effectively concluded, Season 3 officially started on June 17. Below, you'll find a recap of what went down during The Device--better known as the Doomsday event--and a full video replay so you can check it out for yourself. After that, you'll be ready to jump into the game and see everything that changed.

What Happened During Fortnite's Event?

The rumors were true: Season 3 will be water-themed following a massive and destructive event, changing the battle royale map and bringing with it a new guest. You can watch a replay below, but the long-awaited season-ending event has taken Fortnite by storm. The Device, the culmination of Season 2's arc, has been set off destroying The Agency and submerging the entire map in water.

Fortnite servers filled up shortly before 10:30 AM PT/ 1:30 PM ET, 30 minutes before The Device was scheduled to go off. Players who were able to join got to mess around with a team deathmatch mode where a ton of old weapons and abilities were available as "techs."

Once the clock struck 2:00 PM ET the fighting stopped, and a few minutes later, huge rods emerged out of the hatches surrounding The Agency. Then the device itself, a huge orb located within The Agency, rose above the map causing a huge storm. A huge wall of water completely surrounded the building and everyone around it. The device was able to push back the storm, temporarily removing it from the map entirely.

The event showed multiple scenes as it cut between the device rising out of the ground to a first-person perspective of an office. Dialogue discussing the device, along with something called "the loop" could be overheard before Jonesy, everyone's favorite blonde guy, walked into the room.

That's as far as the special event went. No major changes were confirmed yet as the entire map was still intact, albeit surrounded by water and with The Agency now destroyed. More changes are expected to come once Season 3 kicks off later this week.

How Do I Watch The Fortnite Event?

You can rewatch a replay of the event above--that should be handy if you missed out on The Device, as detailed below.

Why Wouldn't The Game Launch? Were Servers Down?

Epic has warned players to ensure they secured a place by jumping in-game 30 minutes before the event began. As it turned out, that wasn't early enough: Shortly before the event began, Epic announced that Fortnite had reached capacity and recommended you stream the event online. Because of this, players were finding that Fortnite would not launch. We were able to verify this, and there was no error message presented; the game simply didn't open. Other players reported queues, but in general, it appears if you didn't have the game open more than 40 minutes in advance, you may have missed seeing it happen for yourself in-game. Epic has since apologized for those who didn't get to see it live.

What Was Expected?

Although Epic had not explicitly said so, it seemed quite clear that The Device will lead to a water-themed Season 3. Various leaks suggested as much--we were simply waiting to see how exactly The Device paved the way for that. Because of the updated animations for swimming, it was predicted that some of the battle royale map could be sent underwater as part of the event (and, in fact, a new Fortnite leak suggested that's precisely the case). This would create a radically-different environment for the beginning of Season 3, assuming the changes are story-centric and semi-permanent.

Recently, Epic partnered with OnePlus to get Fortnite running at 90 frames per second on their phones, which is better than consoles like the Nintendo Switch. One thing's for sure: based on the smash success of April's Travis Scott event, it's likely that this Doomsday will be even more ambitious than any we've seen before.