Fortnite Big Bang live event announced and it will mark ‘a new beginning’ for the game

Fortnite OG loading screen
(Image credit: Epic Games)

Epic Games has officially announced Fortnite’s next live event: The Big Bang. It’s set to kick off in-game on December 2.

For those unfamiliar, live events in Fortnite have historically been spectacles which occur within matches in ways that tie into the ongoing storyline. The last major one was called ‘Fracture’, which took place in early December last year at the end of Chapter Three: Season Four. That one concluded with the Fortnite island exploding, so it was rather intense, to say the least.

As for The Big Bang, Epic hasn’t yet outlined what exactly players can expect from it, but it’s been teased that it “marks a new beginning for Fortnite.” On social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter), the official Fortnite account elaborated on this slightly and stated that the “unforgettable event” will be “evolving all things as you know them”, and before concluding, it will also include a “memorable reveal.”

A news post on the Fortnite blog states that the event will be playable from 2pm ET / 11am PT / 7pm GMT / 6am AEDT on December 2, and discoverable in the Battle Royale tile on the Discover screen half an hour before that so that you can get any cosmetics you want to wear sorted out beforehand. Parties of up to four players will be able to experience it together. 

Before the event commences, Epic-made experiences will be disabled in Fortnite at 12pm ET / 9am PT / 5pm GMT / 4am AEDT on December 2, so be sure to make the most of those before they become temporarily unavailable.

Otherwise, Epic has also issued a photosensitivity warning due to the event’s flashing lights, so keep that in mind before loading in. 

Fortnite players were already gearing up for the announcement of a live event before this thanks to a tweet addressing the backlash over the recent age-rating restrictions applied to cosmetics in some Creative mode islands. On Sunday (November 19), the Fortnite account wrote: “Welp, our plan for cosmetics with the ratings update didn’t hit the mark. We're working on a few new options that we hope to have in place for, say... some sort of big in-game event. Stay tuned; we’ll keep you posted.”

Earlier today, Epic announced that this gating will be disabled for most in-game cosmetics “until we have a long-term solution in place.” Players can expect the change to roll out from December 3.

On the lookout for some stellar Black Friday gaming deals? Be sure to check out our roundup of the best Black Friday video game deals for some enormous discounts on huge 2023 titles.

Catherine Lewis
News Writer, TechRadar Gaming

Catherine is a News Writer for TechRadar Gaming. Armed with a journalism degree from The University of Sheffield, she was sucked into the games media industry after spending far too much time on her university newspaper writing about Pokémon and cool indie games, and realising that was a very cool job, actually. She previously spent 19 months working at GAMINGbible as a full-time journalist. She loves all things Nintendo, and will never stop talking about Xenoblade Chronicles.