Fortnite Chapter 2 season 2: Start time, Agent Meowsicles and everything else we know

The next season can't get here fast enough. 

Epic Games

Fortnite Chapter 2 season 1 is finally coming to an end after 18 weeks. The battle royale game will start another season with new skins, changes to the map and a mysterious plot soon to be revealed. 

Like previous seasons, Fortnite Chapter 2 season 2 has a story teased by developer Epic Games. There've been some hints laid out, but players won't know what's going on until the v12.00 update is available for download. 

When does Fortnite Chapter 2 season 2 start? 

The next season of Fortnite begins Feb. 20. Downtime will start at 4 a.m. ET/1 a.m. PT to update the servers to v12.00, according to Epic. As is usually the case with these larger updates, the game will likely be down for a significant amount of time. Some updates can be ready within 10 or 15 minutes, while others can take an hour or more before being ready. 

What's the story for the new season? 

Unlike previous seasons, Epic didn't have a season-ending in-game event. Instead, the developer began an alternate reality game, with posters and digital ads located in a dozen cities across the globe, featuring a gold handprint over the title, and a number to call. 

Each number went to different recorded messages in the country's native language, with varying recordings. Almost all the messages mentioned some sort of agency and agents being activated.

 The official Fortnite Discord also saw bots who were "activating" agents by randomly selecting them within the chat. 

Then on Monday, the official Fortnite Twitter account sent a tweet saying "transmission intercepted," with an image of the golden handprint. 

Since then, the account has sent multiple tweets with information blacked out, similar to redacted details in a report, and new images that include a propane gas tank, a torpedo and a ball of yarn with mouse grenades. 

Each might be for a new vehicle, but the last one also hints that Fortnite might get a little catty. 

Who's Agent Meowsicles?

On Feb. 5, a data miner discovered a music file labeled "Agent Meowsicles." Epic tends to include files for a future update whenever a new patch is added to the game, and the filenames tend to give a hint of what's coming. 

Another data miner took the audio file and put it through a spectrograph to see the visual representation of the frequencies and found images of a cat and a fish. 

Some Fortnite fans made their own Agent Meowsicles fan art and came up with a few fan theories. When the ARG started, one Reddit user checked the coding of the Fortnite website on Tuesday to discover a hidden cat. 

Wednesday also saw tweets from the Fortnite Twitter account referencing "nine lives" and how info was "declassifeowied."

Is Agent Meowsicles a new character? A purchasable skin? A kitty cat players can put in their backpack? We won't know until the start of Fortnite Chapter 2 season 2. 

What else is changing? 

The new season will include some changes to the map, but the scope of the alterations is unclear. Multiple people have discovered partial images of the in-game map in the cryptic tweets, and a theory's developed that an oil rig will be added to an area of the game. 

Other locations were hinted at in the tweets, but there's still no clear sign of what may change. 

A tweet Wednesday morning shows what looks like a submarine, which could be tied to the torpedo seen earlier. Chapter 2 season 1 did add more waterways and motorboats for traveling across the island. A submarine would be a strange addition, since the water on the island is shallow, while the sea surrounding it isn't an ideal place to roam because it places players so far away from the action.

One definite change confirmed by Epic coming in v12.00 is the option to mute licensed emote audio. Some emotes -- dances and actions performed by a player's avatar -- are based on various dances and will have an accompanying music piece play when used. Platforms like YouTube and Twitch can automatically remove or demonetize videos featuring certain music and this option would help get around that issue.

This ability could also be a result of a recently released Never Gonna Give You Up emote based on the Rick Astley '80s song.

PC players will be the first to get this option in v12.00, but Epic says other platforms will receive it later. 

Fortnite is available for PC, PS4, Android, iOS, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch.

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