'Fortnite' Datamine "Reveals" Meteor Impact, Servers Going Down for Update

UPDATE: Servers appear to b e back online, but players may encounter long queue times.

A new Fortnite datamine revealed that the meteor looming over the map may come crashing down soon with various sound files added in the most recent update.

With the release of Patch v3.6.0 that was made available yesterday, new sound files were added to Fortnite that heavily reference the meteor and various effects. According to images that were shared by Fortnite Intel that show what the names of the files are, Epic Games has added files that differ depending on how far away the meteor is and what action it's taking.

There are many sound files for the meteor as well that measure distances from far away right up until the meteor lands and creates an impact on the map, according to the names of the files. There's also a state for the meteor that's named "BreakOpen" so it appears that it'll be fragmented somewhere on the map wherever Epic Games plans to drop the infamous meteor.

Fortnite Intel also compiled the various meteor sounds into an update that you can listen to here. The audio in the video covers all the sound files shown in the image above.

In addition to the audio effects, more files indicate that there might be a Limited Time Mode starting in the future that's associated with the meteors. Under the "Playlists" folder in the Fortnite files, Fortnite Intel also shared an image of the files that shows new subfolders have been added. "Carmine" and "Impact" have both been added, the former containing another folder titled "MeteorDrop" that includes more assets that reference the meteor itself. Epic Games hasn't confirmed that the new Limited Time Modes are being added let alone that the meteor itself is going to land, but with an emergency broadcast message appearing earlier today, Fortnite players are ready for just about anything to happen after predicting the meteoric event for weeks.

We are currently undergoing downtime to unblock a small number of players who were affected by a recent backend service update.

Once downtime has concluded, we will post an update.

— Fortnite (@FortniteGame) April 25, 2018

Further fueling that speculation is a tweet that was just released not long ago by Epic Games. Through the official Fortnite Twitter account, it was announced that the game is undergoing downtime to unblock players with the tweet saying that an update will be posted once everything's resolved. This would've been a typical tweet any other day, but with everything that's going on, it's got some players wondering if this downtime is really just an excuse to set up the meteor's fall.

Epic Games will have an update soon once the downtime is concluded, so be on the lookout for any meteor-related news today or in the coming days.