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          Fortnite Chapter 2 launches with new areas and mechanics

          The black hole is gone, and Fortnite Chapter 2 is here. Provided by Epic Games
          • Kelly Cohen, ESPNOct 15, 2019, 10:32 AM ET

          Hey, Fortnite fanatics: It's time to start Chapter 2.

          Fans of the game have spent the past 36-plus hours itching see what was happening to their beloved game, and now there is a whole new world to conquer.

          Season 10 ended Sunday afternoon with everything (shockingly) getting sucked into a black hole. Fortnite players woke up early Tuesday to the game's second installment, which includes a brand new map and a handful of changes.

          What players can expect

          Epic Games officially launched Fortnite Chapter 2 at 6 a.m. EST, in which players can drop into this Season 11 world and explore a new island with 13 locations.

          The new installment is water-centric, which means new swimming abilities, fishing objectives and boats. There are also new characters to support to your team, and that includes new healing powers, the ability to carry teammates and celebration moves such as high fives.

          The new world also features new hideouts -- this includes a dumpster -- explosives and weapons.

          How we got here

          When players logged on around 2 p.m. ET Sunday, anticipating the end of Season 10 and the beginning of Season 11, they could access a single mode: "The End."

          A handful of rifts and rockets showed up, and a large meteor crashed into Loot Lake. Next came an explosion, and everything was sucked into a giant rift, leaving behind only a black hole.

          The game was unplayable, and every medium Fortnite was on showed only a black hole. Social media? Black hole. Streams? Black hole. User reaction ranged from excited to not pleased. People were concerned about their items and V-Bucks and contacted the Epic support line. No joke.

          Fortnite is known for revamping with a new theme every few months, so what happened this week is no shock (though this was by far the most drastic stunt pulled by Fortnite).

          The game is extremely popular worldwide. March 2019 was the last time Epic Games released a statistic about the number of registered accounts: 250 million players.

          Social reaction

          Kyle "Bugha" Giersdorf recently won the first Fortnite World Cup, and he was quite pleased Tuesday morning.

          Tyler "Ninja" Blevins had a simple tweet about Chapter 2.

          There might, however, be a bug or two to squash, such as this dead zone discovered by Timothy "TimTheTatman" John Betar's squad.