In November, Epic revealed it was pushing back the second season of Chapter 2 to early February to focus on holiday updates, but now says the season won’t start until even later. The developer didn’t offer much insight on what Season 2 has in store, but noted there’ll be more overtime challenges and a two-week event before it kicks off.

Meanwhile, a major update is on the way early next month that will overhaul the physics engine (perhaps another reason why it pushed back Season 2). Epic expects that there’ll be some hiccups as it transitions to Unreal Engine’s Chaos system, so it’s running tests with a small group of players and will refine everything in due course. The Chaos engine could make environmental damage much more detailed and interactive.

v11.50 will feature Unreal Engine’s Chaos physics engine, which can allow for stuff such as what you see in this image to happen in Fortnite! pic.twitter.com/O22nwUybwC

— FireMonkey • Fortnite Intel (@iFireMonkey) January 24, 2020

To start, code inside the game’s 10.30 release has alluded to 12 brand new points of interest, such as Camp Cod, Power Plant and Weeping Woods. That’s many more than you’d get with an update to the existing map. Moreover, Epic has dropped some not-so-subtle clues that the next season will involve a dramatic change. A big in-game event slated for October 13th is described simply as “The End,” and the last loading screen of the season shows players waving farewell to the battle bus. Large changes are afoot, and it’s just a question of what they’ll look like when they arrive.

If there is a new map, there’s an unanswered question: will it replace the existing map, or supplement it? Other battle royale titles have taken different approaches, such as rotating maps (PUBG) or defaulting to the new map (Apex). Multiple maps would improve variety, but would also be more challenging to maintain and might disappoint those who only occasionally get to play favorites. If nothing else, there’s a good chance you’ll have to rethink play strategies you’ve known for ages.