Fortnite says goodbye to season 7 with an alien ship, explosions, and a cliffhanger

Fortnite Chapter Two’s season eight kicks off tomorrow, but Epic Games had a going away party of its own as part of an in-game event called Operation: Sky Fire today. The mini-mission sent players deep into the Mothership, raising far more questions than it answered. The event is the culmination of Slone’s plans to “end the Invasion once and for all” throughout season seven.

The Mothership abducted players when the event began, sending them into small cells. Players received a backpack with a visor counting upwards from zero seconds to a minute, then displayed a holographic alien symbol. The doors opened and groups of players had to navigate the ship to continue the teaser.

After going through a series of doors and eluding ships and alien henchmen alike, players were corralled into a slipstream-like tube that brought them to another, larger room. It had a pool in the middle and tall windows that granted a panoramic view of several floating platforms.

Shutters closed on the windows moments later, and a colossal tube with glowing alien symbols slowly rose from within the pool. The lights on the cube faded out and the windows opened again, revealing a grim sight: what looked like active bombs below the floating platforms, flashing with their red lights. At the same time, players’ backpacks started glowing red and showed a countdown, with two minutes and 45 seconds remaining.

The next step of the event unveiled itself after players touched the cube, showing that the room was, in fact, an elevator platform that started moving upwards, bringing players and the cube to a wide, open area.

An alien ship passed by and caused several other platforms—like the one players sat on—to rise from the ground. Slowly, a nearby cube lit up in purple. Another one did the same, further behind and on the other side of the room. Seconds later, the entire room lit up with a purple glow as the backpack counted down the final seconds.

Explosions started ringing when the timer hit zero, sending players flying onto the map alongside a series of gargantuan, glowing cubes. A cinematic causes players to look back and see the alien ship exploding. A gigantic piece of debris flies towards the players’ characters, seemingly hitting them in the process, before the screen faded to black and displayed a message: “To be continued… in season eight.”

Fortnite Chapter Two, season eight kicks off tomorrow, on Sept. 13.