Here’s When ‘Fortnite’ Chapter 3, Season 4 Ends And Chapter 4, Season 1 Begins

The end is nigh. Well, the end of Chapter 3 of Fortnite, in any case. After just four—admittedly quite long—seasons, Epic Games is turning the page.

What this means for the game isn’t entirely clear. While Chapter 3, Season 4 will be over, what awaits on the other side remains largely a mystery. We know we’re getting a big live-event as a transition between seasons. We’re almost certainly getting a new map, which is always the case when a new Chapter starts. The new season will come with a Battle Pass and new items, gameplay changes and so forth.

The new map has been uncovered by dataminers. Or, rather, its code name has likely been revealed as ‘Asteria.’ Previous maps have been referred to in the files as Athena (Chapter 1), Apollo (Chapter 2) and Artemis (Chapter 3).

We also know that the updated Creative 2.0 is launching mid-season in January. This brings Unreal Engine 5 editing capabilities to the game’s creative mode. Epic refers to it as the Unreal Editor for Fortnite or UEFN for short. It’s probably the most exciting thing we know about Chapter 4, Season 1 at this point.

In any case, while we don’t have hard details on when exactly the next Chapter begins, here’s what we do know. I’ll update this post if we get any further details, but this should give you a pretty good sense of what to expect.

When Does Chapter 3, Season 4 End?

Chapter 3, Season 4 officially draws to a close on Saturday, December 3 at 1 pm PT / 4 pm ET / 9 pm UTC. That’s when you need to finish your Battle Pass by and wrap up any remaining bits and pieces you may be working on.

This is followed by the Fractured live-event which kicks off the moment the season ends, though a special event lobby opens up half an hour beforehand. This event will be a co-op event similar to the Collision event from a couple seasons ago, though you’ll be in lobbies with other players as well and can even team up.

That event lasts at least 40 minutes, and likely a bit longer as players can join anytime from 3:30pm ET to 4:40pm ET (logging in on December 2nd or 3rd will get you a special smore’s roasting emote).

Once the live-event is over, the servers will go down at some point and the game will go dark for a period of time. We don’t know how long and it’s unlikely we’ll be told. At the end of Chapter 1, the map was sucked into a black hole and the game went dark for several days. Sometimes the game will go down for just a few hours or a day. It’s impossible to say. But the new Chapter 4, Season 1 launch will likely take place on Sunday, December 5th. It’s possible it will be delayed longer but I wouldn’t count on it.

As for the Battle Pass, plot and everything else, we know very little. The Paradise theme of Season 4 is cracking into FRACTURED for the event, but whether that’s also the title for the next season or will truly just be a transition remains to be seen.