Fortnite Season 9 Teaser 3: New map rumors intensify as third image, letter revealed

The third Fortnite Battle Royale Season 9 teaser has finally been released and players around the world are already picking it apart to find any hidden clues that Epic Games might have included.

With today, May 8 2019, being the final day of Season 8, the third and final teaser was expected to be the biggest clue so far for what fans can expect when the v9.00 patch goes live on PC, PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and mobile on May 9.

The release for teaser image number three came at 15:00 BST (10:00 EDT, 07:00 PDT) on May 8 and it didn’t take long for fans to realize that it includes the letter ‘O’ – meaning that the three images combined spell ‘NEO’. 

For those of you that were expecting ‘NEW’, remember that ‘neo’ is actually a way of saying new and Google dictionary even describes it as “a new or revived form” of something.

Some fans think the image on the character’s arm could be the outline of an entirely overhauled map.

The Twitter caption for the image is “The Future is Tilted.” and the character displayed on top of the ‘O’ appears to fit in with the futuristic theme. The purple character even seems to be displaying some sort map on his arm, although we’re not entirely sure about that.

What do we know about Season 9 so far?

Before the May 8 teaser, the developers have given fans two major clues. The first teaser, released on May 6, was accompanied with the following caption: “The Future is Unknown.” 

A blue image of a futuristic looking male character (with a rather cyborg-ish feel to him) was attached to the Twitter post and a large letter ‘N’ took up the majority of the background:

“The Future is Unknown” for Fortnite Battle Royale fans ahead of Season 9.

The second Season 9 teaser image was released on May 7. This time the caption was almost identical, stating: “The Future is Bright.”

The image showed a similarly futuristic looking skin – perhaps a female marine or astronaut – on top of a pink letter ‘E’, which led many fans to speculate that the game’s devs were beginning to spell out a particular word or clue.

Given the capitalization of ‘Unknown’ and ‘Bright’ in the Twitter posts, one of our theories was that these are also specific clues towards the names of the characters that have been on display in the images so far. However, the ‘Tilted’ clue makes us think they could have something to do with points of interest on a potentially revamped map for areas like Tilted Towers that were recently destroyed.

The second Season 9 teaser focused on the letter ‘E’.

Will we get a whole new map for Season 9?

Many believed that the final word would be ‘NEW’ as it would fit well with the idea of the future. Following the recent destruction of various points of interest after the volcano erupted, some players are even beginning to speculate that an entirely new map is on the cards! 

With the third and final teaser completing the spelling of ‘NEO’ instead of ‘NEW’ we’re still pretty sure that SOMETHING is going to be overhauled and the ‘Tilted’ hint only adds to that. It’s easy to understand why a huge amount of expectation is now being put on tomorrow’s May 9 Season 9 update. 

Creative Director at Epic, Donald Mustard, made another cryptic Twitter post after the teaser was released, saying “From the ashes, rise.” If fans don’t get an entirely overhauled Tilted Towers at the very least, we’ll be shocked!

If an entirely new map really is on the cards, the Season 9 patch will be the biggest, and perhaps most controversial, in the history of the game.

What do we know about the Season 9 Battle Pass?

Expect to see the Season 9 Battle Pass cost around the same amount as previous seasons, so somewhere in the 950 V-Bucks (~ $10) range.

The Battle Pass gives you the chance to unlock a range of exclusive skins, emotes and other cosmetic items as you level up through all the tiers. The skins that have been hinted at in the teaser images are virtually guaranteed to be included in the Battle Pass.

You’ll also get the opportunity to complete Battle Pass challenges and, if previous seasons are anything to go by, unlock a mystery skin through a series of bonus challenges. This has been a staple of the Battle Pass for a number of seasons with the most recent coming in the form of the Season 8 Discovery challenges.

We’ll update this post as soon as we have more information and you can expect all of the Season 9 news as it happens when the patch goes live.

Last updated on May 8 2019 at 10:00 Eastern Time.