Fortnite scientists discover the length of a day on the island

Some enterprising and inquisitive individuals have recently shared a video on the official Fortnite Battle Royale subreddit which revealed just how long the length of a day is on the island.

the day fortnite fell into cycle pic.twitter.com/wpOXE7ryD3

— Cobo (@toni349t) October 10, 2020

The day-night cycle in Fortnite is one of those things players have always been aware of, but there was never really a reason to pay too much attention to it. Even when Fortnite is in the middle of its darkest night there is plenty of light to see players by. Also, nothing really changes with the light, so players tend to just play the same whether its day or night.

Time moves on, in life as in Fortnite

Time marches on, unceasing in the face of insurmountable odds, refusing to stop for events whether small or significant. Nothing lasts forever, events can not be reclaimed once experienced, and every moment lives longer in the minds of the living than it ever did in reality.

Perhaps inspired by this existential conundrum, or more likely simply interested in developing a colorful moving skybox, Fortnite features a fully functioning simulacrum of time. As the recently published video shows, a full day in Fortnite takes 18 minutes to pass. With this information, a few more mathematically inclined commenters were able to find out that a year in Fortnite would then take 4 days and 13.5 hours.

📸 Wood Fire, #Fortnite, 2020."The day cycle in Fortnite can produce some intense colours... if you can catch the light on the right angle."#FortnitePhotography #FortniteArt #VGPUnite pic.twitter.com/DN9fIznTLO

— BATTLE ROYART (@battleroyart) October 1, 2020

The day-night cycle in Fortnite has more potential than it seems

It’s fair to say that Fortnite still has a lot of design space left to explore. One direction Epic could take Fortnite would be to include more features that care about whether it is day or night in game.

Even something as simple as a Flopper that gives different effects depending on the time of day, or adjustments to when certain floppers can be found, would affect the game in interesting ways.

Currently, the only way the day-night cycle affects Fortnite is with regards to problematic skins that can be significantly more difficult to see depending on the time of day. The all-black superhero skin that has already been causing some problems in shadows can have those problems exacerbated during the game’s night.

There’s no reason to believe that Epic has any plans to make further use of the Fortnite day-night cycle at the moment, but it’s easy to see that this is an aspect of the game that could benefit from further experimentation.