Fortnite Chapter 4 Season 3 Start Date, Battle Pass, And Optimus Prime

​We don't know a lot about the next Fortnite season just yet, but what we do know is pretty big.

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Fortnite's Chapter 4 Season 2 has been a real doozy, adding the incredible Mega City to the Battle Royale island as part of an all-new Japan-inspired biome, along with the recently vaulted Kinetic Blade. But now spring is ending, and summer is upon us--and it's almost time for Fortnite Chapter 4 Season 3. Here's everything we know so far about Fortnite's latest summer season.

When does Fortnite Chapter 4 Season 3 begin?

The current season will end late on the evening of Thursday, June 8--that's late Thursday night/early Friday morning in the USA. That likely means no live event to end the season. And downtime should be fairly short--Fortnite was only offline for five hours before the start of this current season, so the days of extended downtime to start a season might be over.

Fortnite Chapter 4 Season 3 key art teases Tranformers crossover

There is a lot to discuss about this image, which was provided in full by Shiina after a portion of the image appeared on reddit, but let's start with the elephant in the room: That's Optimus Prime, the Transformer, right there on the left. We know this is key art rather than some random loading screen because of the "CONNECTING…" message at the bottom along with the blue loading bar--this is an image of the game booting up, rather than loading into a match.

If Optimus Prime is on the key art, then it seems pretty likely he'll be in the battle pass. But Shiina says he's not the bonus skin, which was Attack on Titan's Eren Yeager this season. Since we know very little about next season beyond what we can see in the key art, we've got no info on the particulars of the Optimus Prime skin, which we have to assume will have some kind of built-in transformation emote. Possibly even a traversal emote where he turns into a big rig, a la Kit's motorcycle emote.

What's the theme for Fortnite Chapter 4 Season 3?

Our very first official tease for the new season revealed that it'll be dubbed Fortnite Wilds. There's a very short video with an image of a jungle with some old ruins.

Since this is CGI, there's no point in trying to figure out what exact part of the map is being changed. This is not representative of what the map will actually look like. But the general implications are very obvious: That Season 3 will add a new jungle/rainforest-type of area to the Battle Royale island, probably over an area that's currently largely empty.

When Season 2 added its Japan biome, we only lost one named location and gained four new ones. A similar change should be expected here, probably in either the southwest or north central parts of the map--Epic could probably expand the northern end of the island without losing any current named locations, even. The foliage in that longer teaser above, by the way, is from a biome that stretches across the islandin a narrow band from Slappy Shores in the east to Shattered Slabs and the coast beyond in the west.

The return of raptors, which haven't been around since Chapter 2, indicates that Season 3 could be a new primal-like season, a la Chapter 2 Season 6. If Fortnite is collaborating with Transformers: Rise of the Beasts and bringing back raptors, then a new primal season would track. But judging by the "18th century shipwreck victim" look of the guy in the center of the key art, not to mention the old-timey pistol he's holding, we could instead be looking at a new pirate-themed season.

Or it could be a bit of both. This season's Attack on Titan collaboration, for example, doesn't mesh at all with the Mega theme since that show has a medieval Europe aesthetic--it fit with the parts of the map that were already there more than it did with the new stuff. So it clearly doesn't have to be one or the other.

One other possibility for what could be in store: some kind of new Indiana Jones adventure with the movie coming out at the end of June. We already had an Indiana Jones skin in last summer's battle pass, though--meaning they cannot sell him in the item shop--and it's unlikely they'd add collab things to the gameplay if they aren't using it to sell some new cosmetics.

Will we actually be able to ride the raptors?

While we haven't had any animals big enough to ride on the Chapter 4 island so far, Fortnite did add rideable animals (wolves and boars) to Battle Royale back in Chapter 3. So there's no reason to think this image is misleading. You'll probably be able to ride the raptors. If they work like the wolves and boars did, they'll also follow you around and help fight your opponents when you're on foot, too.

The raptors will probably be a lot more helpful in that regard than those other animals were, though, because the raptors were always pretty aggressive to begin with--random wild ones could easily murder you if you weren't paying attention. So they may end up being on par with current hireable NPCs in terms of helpfulness in combat, though it's doubtful they'll be able to rez you in the heat of battle.

What skins will be in Fortnite's Chapter 4 Season 3 battle pass?

If the image above is the key art for the season, then all four of the skins we see here should be in the battle pass. Two of these are folks who appear to be brand-new original characters--the guy in the center, and the woman on the raptor.

Other than that, we've got Optimus Prime, and a new, summer version of the Meowscles skin surfing that vine in the back. Shiina says the bonus slot on this pass will go to an original skin rather than a collab.

Epic has confirmed two of these skins already. The Fortnite Twitter account tweeted out four of the new battle pass skins on Tuesday, and the guy in the center and the woman on the raptor were among them.

What new guns and other weapons are coming in Chapter 4 Season 3?

HypeX has mentioned a number of changes to the Battle Royale arsenal for this season. Such as a new bolt-action sniper with a thermal scope (with one-shot headshots still in play), a "Lever Pistol" which is the old-timey gun from the key art I mentioned before, and a new mythic drum shotgun. That shotgun being specified as mythic likely means the drum is not returning to the general loot pool, but will rather be a specific drop from a boss or a capture point. So don't expect more of the complete drum shotgun mayhem that we had during Chapter 3 Season 2 when the gun was last in the game.

Meanwhile, helicopters have apparently been updated with a grenade or rocket launcher--which could indicate we'll be seeing helicopters this season as well.

What should we expect from Fortnite Chapter 4 Season 3 outside of Battle Royale?

Word is that Season 3 will add a new limited-time mode (LTM) that will be a racing game in the vein of Mario Kart, and that it will have its own battle pass. Could this be a Rocket League thing? Will this other pass be a proper battle pass that's included with Fortnite Crew, or will it be more like the Star Wars Find the Force event with its mini-pass that had a premium track that you had to pay for? The details are elusive--we don't even know when it's being added to the game. But if it actually has its own battle pass, I wouldn't expect it to release at the beginning of the season.