Fortnite Season 4 start date, event, map changes, and battle pass details

Fortnite Season 4 is creeping ever closer, and before you know it, we'll be leaving the current season's watery depths for something new. Most notably, Epic has confirmed that Thor, Wolverine, Iron Man, Captain America, and several other Marvel characters will be featured.

Season 3 featured plenty of significant changes, not least of which was the dramatic flooding of half of the map, burying familiar landmarks. Over the course of the season, the water has receded back into the ocean, revealing new and old locations. Now that we're so, so close to season 4, we've whipped up this helpful guide to lay out everything we know, including the Fortnite season 4 start date, battle pass, new skins, map changes, an event, and more.

Fortnite season 4 theme: Thor and other Marvel characters on the way

Epic has now confirmed that Thor, and quite a few other Marvel characters, are on the way for Fortnite season 4. Besides the god of thunder, Epic has now shared a comic book page featuring Captain America, Wolverine, She-Hulk, Dr. Doom, X-Men's Storm, Groot, Mystique, and billionaire/playboy/philanthropist himself, Iron Man.

These aren't the first superbeings to appear in Fortnite: we've already had Thanos, Captain America, Deadpool, and even three characters from X-Force. DC has gotten in on the game too with the still available Aquaman, Batman, Harley Quinn, Catwoman, and now Joker and Poison Ivy in a November bundle.

As for the story of Fortnite season 4, the comic book that you can read from the battle pass menu gives us a pretty clear picture of how Thor came to the world of Fortnite.

Thor, newly crowned king of Asgard, was minding his own business when Galactus, the planet-swallowing villain appeared and warned him of the approaching "Black Winter," AKA the death of all things.

Thor and Galactus partnered up to find five planets that would give Galactus the power to defeat the Black Winter, and successfully evacuated one planet's populace. While on their way to planet two, Galactus and Thor spotted a bright rift releasing seemingly infinite amounts of energy. Never one to pass up a good meal, Galactus flew towards it, prompting Thor to race him there to warn whoever lived in such a place.

Surprise, surprise, Thor ended up in the world of Fortnite, smack dab in the middle of the battle royale island. Thor did his best to communicate with the residents (Brite Bomber, Jonesy, Raven, Peely, Lynx, and even Kit driving his little mech suit), but was summarily shot to a pulp. Not exactly getting off on the right foot. 

Thor gave one last warning, but appeared to faint in mid-air, drop his hammer, and develop amnesia—except he remembers that the Fortnite characters just kicked his butt. For that, he issues a venomous threat.

Though Thor had his memory wiped, he was still able to call for assistance as Galactus rapidly approached. Using the Bifrost rainbow bridge, Thor's ally Sif summoned the Marvel heroes you see in the image above. Funny enough, this is apparently a Marvel universe where all these heroes have yet to meet, as Iron Man asks who everyone is.

Thor's hammer is now located on the season 3 map. You can find it in a crater southwest of Salty Springs. It's reminiscent of the original Thor movie, when the hammer ends up in a crater outside of a desert town after the god of thunder is banished from Asgard.

Observant players will also notice a rift in the sky far above the crater. It's considerably higher than the altitude the battle bus flies at. We can reasonably conclude that this is where Thor came from when he crash landed on the Fortnite island.

A series of Bifrost runes can also be seen at a house east of Weeping Woods, up in the hills. Bifrost runes appear when Asgardians use the Bifrost to travel throughout the universe. It's certainly more convenient than COVID air travel.

But is this merely another marketing tie-in? According to one tweet from Donald Mustard, we might get a lot more than just skins and cosmetic items from this season.

"It's ALL connected. Pay attention. The story is about to kick into overdrive..."

The season 3 event (which sparked the island flooding) featured a few sequences where Jonesy was seen speaking to the player character (in first-person) in what appeared to be a government agency office. That event led some to believe that the world of Fortnite was expanding in ways we hadn't yet imagined, with some sort of ongoing continuity persisting throughout the seasons. Some players theorize that the Fortnite island acts as a meeting point for all sorts of different universes, which would explain all the weird crossovers in a meta way.

Fortnite Season 4 start date

Thanks to Season 3's battle pass ending on August 27th, and Epic's insistence that players using Apple or Android devices won't be able to play Fortnite after the next major update, we can reasonably conclude that Season 4 will start on or soon after August 27.

Epic isn't just dealing with Apple and Google's army of lawyers; the United States is still very much in the middle of a pandemic, and the quarantine measures put in place by various state governments and game studios' own safety measures aren't likely to go away any time soon.

This means that Epic, once again, has to launch a new season in the middle of a pandemic, when all of its employees are working from home. Season 3 released after an almost two-week delay back in June, so it's possible Season 4 gets delayed, too. Remember June? Simpler times.

All that said, it'll be interesting to see how Epic's lawsuits with Apple and Google will impact the beginning of Season 4. Epic is seemingly banking on Fortnite's millions of players pressuring Apple and Google to relinquish their side of the fight. A 2019 Newzoo report states that 78% of Fortnite players are console users, but Fortnite still reached 100 million iOS downloads within five months of launching on Apple back in mid-2018, and 21 million downloads on Android within 21 days of being available.

When is the Fortnite Season 4 event and what's going to happen?

Surprisingly, it appears Epic is passing on an actual event for the season 4 transition. Instead, Epic is opting for smaller teasers involving Thor and his arrival on the Fortnite island, along with the comic book pages we covered above, and then just rolling into the new season.

The latest finding is that Thor's hammer has fallen to earth on the Fortnite island, the rift in the sky above, and the Bifrost runes that have appeared east of Weeping Woods. Beyond that, we just have the story of the comics to go off of. Perhaps the season 4 cinematic and battle pass trailers will have more details to divulge later.

Fortnite Season 4 battle pass

The Fortnite Season 4 battle pass remains a mystery for now. As always, you can expect it to likely cost 950 V-bucks for the basic battle pass, and 2,800 V-bucks for the special battle pass that will start you out at tier 25.

One very important thing to note for Season 4 is that Epic has recently revised V-buck prices, after nearly three years. V-bucks are now 20% cheaper, meaning instead of paying $9.99 USD for 1,000 V-bucks, you'll only pay $7.99.

This new payment setup is partially the result of Epic's baiting of Apple. Epic instituted a new "Epic Direct Payment" system that saved you those two dollars on iOS and Android devices, effectively cutting Apple's share of the profits off. We saw how that turned out, with Fortnite getting kicked off the App Store and Epic suing. Regardless, players are now getting (slightly) more bang for their V-buck. If you bought V-bucks shortly before the change, Epic has details regarding how they're compensating you.

Like we mentioned earlier, longtime data miner HypeX has also stated that Groot (of Guardians of the Galaxy fame) will be a battle pass skin.

Fortnite Season 4 map changes

Fortnite Season 3 featured one of Fortnite's most dramatic map changes in some time. Sure, Chapter 2 Season 1 introduced a brand new map, but Season 3 flooded the heck out of it, adding a floating city (or two), drowning a few other locations, and opening up water routes for boats and shark skiing.

We don't know much about Fortnite Season 4's map changes yet, although we can make a few educated guesses based on what's gone down so far.

Although cars were teased in Fortnite Season 3's gameplay trailer, we only just received them in a recent update. Thankfully, the waterline has receded enough that there's a lot more dry road to drive around. I wouldn't be surprised if Epic modified parts of the map to allow for more interesting routes for cars and trucks to take around the map, much like the boat racing track they implemented for Season 3. That's just a guess, though, so take it with a grain of sea salt.

We'll update this article as soon as more info leaks about Fortnite's Season 4 map.

That's everything we know about Fortnite Season 4 for now. With the new season date rapidly approaching, we can expect plenty of new information and updates to trickle in soon.

In the meantime, don't forget to check out the rest of our Fortnite guides and news.

• Fortnite patch notes season 4: What we know so far
• Fortnite battle pass Season 4: All the big stuff
• Fortnite season 4 skins: Every Marvel outfit
• Fortnite season 4 map: The new major locations
• Fortnite mythic weapons: All the powerful guns