After close to seven years of Fortnite, the maps we played on have changed over the years. Five different chapters, five different maps and dozens of biomes and POIs.
To give you a nostalgic recap, we’ve sorted every major map change in chronological order. Which one did you like the most? | © Epic Games / Earlygame
Wow, what a feeling to see this gem again! Most of the current players probably never witnessed this version of the map. At this time, Epic Games didn't realize they were building a Battle Royale empire, but they accidentally did! | © Epic Games
Epic recognized that the community loves the game, and they started to invest more and more time in updating the Battle Royale mode! And in January 2018, they added 3 new POIs: Junk Junction, Haunted Hills and Snobby Shores to the west side of the map. But the most important POIs added were by far Shifty Shafts and the iconic Tilted Towers!
They also added some landmarks like the stadium, the warehouse, the chair and the Starry Suburbs Ruin as well as the motel in the north. | © Epic Games
Season 3 is one of the most nostalgic seasons for the majority of the community! At the beginning, Lucky Landing was added to celebrate Chinese New Year. Later, players spotted a meteor in the sky. There was also a little feature at the end of the season, when little meteors started to strike the ground in regular matches! | © Epic Games
The meteor fell into Dusty Depot... and the factory nearby, but most people forgot about that.
Besides the new crater, which was named "Dusty Divot", Risky Reels and a few other landmarks were added. Most important was the headquarters next to Snobby Shores, where the rocket-launch live event went on at the end of the season. During the FIFA World Cup, a stadium was also added in the northwest.
Ah yes, and the meteor made some other craters all over the map, also in Tilted Towers, destroying one of the central buildings. | © Epic Games
With Season 5 being launched, we got a huge new biome for the first time ever in Fortnite. The new desert biome was awesome! The most interesting spot was by far Paradise Palms.
Also beloved was the little village in the south, called Pueblo. On the other side of the map, Anarchy Arches was swapped with Lazy Links, a huge golf-resort. And in the west a huge viking-village was built on top of the hill.
During the season we got a lot of other map-updates as well, like the switch from Tomato Town to Tomato Temple, but we can't feature them all here. | © Epic Games
The cube finally arrived at Loot Lake and rose up through the house in the center. During the season, Loot Lake island traveled around the whole map, so Leaky Lake was born.
We also got a new castle near Haunted Hills and a new corn-field-mechanic at Fatal Fields. | © Epic Games
Again, like in season 5, we got a huge new biome. But the snow biome didn't just cover old POIs like Greasy Groove and Flush Factory, it also added a whole new space to the map and brought Frosty Flights, Polar Peak and Happy Hamlet to the island.
After just a day, Risky Reels on the other side of the map were also replaced... by a huge platform of concrete. Epic Games planned to put "The Block" out there. People from the community could actually now build their own POIs in creative, and one was chosen every week to be exhibited. | © Epic Games
Even though a lot of the players in the community don't like snow on the map, Epic Games ignored that and covered the whole map with snow!
A lot of players had issues with the visibility in the new biome. But, luckily, the snow melted over time. | © Epic Games
Season 8 again brought a biome change to the Fortnite map. The huge jungle replaced Wailing Woods, Lazy Links and Tomato Temple with Lazy Lagoon and Sunny Steps. Also, The Block moved to the west and replaced the motel.
The new jungle had a huge volcano in the middle as well. And to cover the pirate theme a little more, we also got a lot of new pirate bases around the map.
At the end of the season, Loot Lake changed again, with the center being dried. The final volcano eruption event also destroyed Tilted Towers and Retail Row and made Polar Peak start to crack. | © Epic Games
After Tilted and Retail were destroyed, the new futuristic theme of season 9 changed drastically. With Neo Tilted and Mega Mall, we got two of the biggest spots ever in Fortnite history. Also, the inner volcano now included a station, called Pressure Plant.
Epic also added three new huge slipstreams - one around the whole map and one each at Neo Tilted and Mega Mall. Some sky platforms were added around the island as well. | © Epic Games
With season X we traveled back in time, at least in some parts of the map. The OG Dusty Depot replaced Dusty Divot and the factory also returned.
After the fight of the Robot and the Monster, a huge Skeletal remained, and the surrounding area turned pink. At Loot Lake, we got a new zero gravity zone.
During the season, we also got Greasy Groove back with the famous and annoying taco time. Paradise Palms merged with Moisty Mire, becoming Moisty Palms. Also, Starry Suburbs emerged from the ruins in the northwest of the map, bringing us the golden Tactical SMG.
To honor the World Cup winners Bugha, Aqua and Nyhrox from season 9, Epic added a trophy at their landing spots Lucky Landing and Happy Hamlet.
And by the way, during the Fortnitemares event this sesason, Retail Row became completely broken through the zombie loot! | © Epic Games
With Chapter 2, the old map "Athena" was gone and "Apollo" appeared. The map was pretty basic and was kind of a reminder to the first days of Fortnite chapter 1, when everything was simple.
Also, Steamy Stacks was pretty popular due to the great loot and giant towers, where you could launch yourself into the air. Also, we don't wanna forget Slurpy Swamp which was popular due to his healing water. | © Epic Games
The new season gave us five new OP drop spots! And each of the new POIs all housed agents with new mythic rarity weapons:
Midas, was the new boss here. You could challenge him to get his golden Drum Gun in the center of the map.
In the north of Steamy Stacks, Meowscles was defending his Yacht with a mythic AK. Later, Deadpool entered the ship with his mythic Dual Pistols. | © Epic Games
The start of Season 3 was really controversial. Not a lot of players really liked the new map being flooded.
New boss POI appeared, called The Fortilla, Catty Corner and The Authority, which was a new version of The Agency.
Also, The Rig, was broken apart and renamed Rickety Rig. | © Epic Games
With the map being fully revealed, Slurpy Swamps was back, pushing Rickety Rig away. Also, a new spot in the northwest appeared, named Coral Castle, with the legendary singing corals. | © Epic Games
At the start of the season, nothing too interesting changed that much, besides Pleasant Park being changed to Doom's Domain. But with the first patch of the Marvel-season, a huge new island covered everything in Frenzy Farm.
The new biome was part of the Marvel collaboration and also included Stark Industries, one of the best landing spots ever in Fortnite. There, you could find Iron Man and a vault, just as in Doom's Domain. | © Epic Games
Chapter 2 Season 5 had a new collaboration for us - The Mandalorian. The middle part of the map was now covered in sand, with a huge zero point crystal in the center. We also got a new POI with Colossal Coliseum, both Salty Springs and Tilted Towers merged to create Salty Towers.
A new spot called Stealthy Stronghold appeared in the north of renamed Pleasant Park and The Fortilla was finally gone. | © Epic Games
Coming to the worst season of all time. Again, the whole middle of the map changed its biome. The desert was gone and replaced with a new orange primal biome.
This brought us new POIs like The Spire, Boney Burbs and Colossal Crops. | © Epic Games
After surviving the awful sixth season, primal biome got removed and some parts of the map were instead covered by purple cube textures. | © Epic Games
Chapter 2 Season 8 didn't change the map that much. But during the season, the cube queen built a cube POI in the middle of the map. We also said farewell to the Apollo map this season. | © Epic Games
With the launch of Chapter 3 in the winter, again we got the map covered with a lot of snow (most people were not keen). We also got an interesting new spot on the new map called "Artemis" and the Spider-Man related city "The daily Bugle".
Also, important to the story was the Sanctuary POI with The Foundation as its guard. He had the very OP MK-7 as a mythic. | © Epic Games
With the snow melting, we finally got to see the new desert biome as well. Also, Tilted Towers was added back in patch 19.10 at the lake in the west of the map.
Fun fact: Tilted is actually located at the exact same spot as it was in chapter 1. | © Epic Games
With the next season a lot of crates and new zeppelins occurred on the map. Due to dams in the north and at the central lake the river in the north of the map dried out.
The hill in the west also got a new POI inside called Command Cavern. | © Epic Games
With season 3 we got a huge biome update again. The whole west was covered in a now green-turquoise color, bringing the Reality Tree, later Reality Falls, to Fortnite. Command Cavern also got a refresh as well, being renamed to Rave Cave.
During the season, Logjam Lumberyard got an update. Also at the border to the desert biome, an Indiana Jones landmark was created, and The Daily Bugle was drastically changed to Lazy Lagoon. | © Epic Games
In chapter 3's final season, the whole biome around the Reality Tree was recolored into a primal yellow type. During the season multiple chrome-POIs appeared on the map and Lazy Lagoon changed again to Lustrous Lagoon.
Say goodbye to the Artemis-map, chapter 4 is around the corner! | © Epic Games
"Asteria", the new map of Chapter 4 had basically 3 biomes on the map. Again a huge snow biome, a basic green one and a yellow dried biome with some middle age vibes. Nothing drastically changed during this season. | © Epic Games
...But in Season 2, Epic cooked! They added a huge new POI called Mega City. The new city kinda had some Tilted Towers vibes due to his size. It was located in an entire new biome with 3 other new POIs: Steamy Springs, Knotty Nets and Kenjutsu Crossing. | © Epic Games
Yet again, a new huge biome! And it was super divisive. The new jungle for one was very different from the jungle biome in chapter 1. It has a lot of little plants where players could hide. They also added sludge in the jungle that made you slippery.
The new ruin and jungle POIs were called: "Rumble Ruins", "Shady Stilts" and "Creeky Compound". | © Epic Games
While all new added biomes stayed on the map, in season 4 Epic added 3 big POIs in the northwest, northeast and the southwest. They are called "Relentless Retreat", "Sanguine Suits" and "Eclipsed Estate". | © Epic Games
The very best season of all time so far - the OG season of Fortnite!
Finally, we got everything back, OG Loot Lake, Tilted Towers, Paradise Palms and more! | © Epic Games
Stage 2 didn't change that much. To be honest everything stayed the same besides Loot Lake, which changed to the Season 6 version. | © Epic Games
Stage 3 added the snow biome from season 7 to the OG recap map. But it was actually just a part of it. We didn't get Happy Hamlet back, and Flush Factory stayed in the game. The amount of snow was so minimum, that even Greasy Groove wasn't touched by the new biome.
Anyway, everyone loved it, the season was beautiful! | © Epic Games
With a massive hype due to the OG map, chapter 5 had to deliver. And as always, the new map started with a lot of snow because it was winter. But as the map was called "Helios", which is the god of the sun, the snow melted away pretty fast. | © Epic Games
The new map had five new boss POIs, where you could get mythic weapons and Medallions, that regen'd your shield over time. Most popular among them were Snooty Steppes with Peter Griffin and his Pump, Lavish Lair with Oscar's Frenzy Auto Shotgun and Fencing Fields with Nisha and her mythic Scar. | © Epic Games
Chapter 5 Season 2 brought two new biomes at once to the game. An underworld biome in the west and an Olympus biome in the east, matching the clash between heaven and hell.
The POIs "Mount Olympus", "Brawler's Battleground", "Grim Gate" and "The Underworld" all had Greek gods and creatures as bosses, that dropped you a mythic weapon and the new Aspect of the Gods Medallions. | © Epic Games
The currently ongoing season 3 brought us yet again a whole new biome with 3 new and 1 slightly changed POI. The wasteland biome with Redline Rig, Brutal Beachhead, Nitrodrome and Sandy Steppes is also featuring a new healing cactus.
All over the map you now find nitro tunnels that speed up your car. Epic also decided to make car modifications accessible on the whole island. | © Epic Games
Speaking about the history of Fortnite and various seasons, what was your favorite season? We did a tier list based on how the majority of the community loved every single season! Let's take a look here:
