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Astronauts may return to 'Fortnite' in Chapter 2 Season 3

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First there was a rocket launch. Then a black hole. And now, after what promises to be an epic flood, astronauts may be launching back into Fortnite. 

As the clock counts down to the launch of Fortnite's Chapter 2 Season 3 on Wednesday (June 17), two images are hinting at the return of astronauts to the battle royale game. Released Monday, the images are actually different views of the same picture and appear to show a spacesuit-clad astronaut holding a small, round mini-moon. 

The folks at Epic Games, makers of Fortnite, shared one image via Twitter, revealing a close-up of the moon. A second, wider view was released in the Fortnite game itself as a promotional screen for the Chapter 2 Season 3 launch on Wednesday. That image revealed that the moon was being carried by an astronaut in a spacesuit.

Related: Just how accurate was Fortnite's chapter-ending black hole?
More: Fortnite Season 3: Start date, event, map and battle pass details

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I'm a sucker for awesome space stuff in video games, so the potential for astronauts returning to Fortnite is pretty exciting. They first debuted in 2018 during Chapter 1 Season 3 Battle Pass, and I must admit that I missed out on them at the time. 

Since then, we've seen live events in the game that have included a comet, asteroid impacts, two rocket launches and a massive black hole that swallowed up the Fortnite map to end its Chapter 1 in October 2019.

The astronaut images come amid a flurry of teases from Epic Games that include an adorable kitten and a shiny, gold trident, all of which set the stage for the Chapter 2 Season 3 launch this week. On Monday, Fortnite held a record-setting event to end Season 2. Called "The Device," the event destroyed the central Agency location and transformed the game's harrowing purple storm into a towering ring of water. 

Our friends at PC Gamer have a rundown on the Device event, and our friends at Games Radar reveal that Epic Games saw a mind-boggling 12 million players log on for the event. 

Will astronauts save Fortnite's battle royale island from a devastating flood in Chapter 2 Season 3? Only time will tell.

Fortnite's Chapter 2 Season 3 launches on Wednesday, June 17. 

Email Tariq Malik at tmalik@space.com or follow him @tariqjmalik. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Instagram. 

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Tariq Malik
Tariq Malik

Tariq is the Editor-in-Chief of Space.com and joined the team in 2001 as a staff writer, and later editor, covering human spaceflight, exploration and space science. He became Space.com's Managing Editor in 2009 and Editor-in-Chief in 2019. Before joining Space.com, Tariq was a staff reporter for The Los Angeles Times. He is also an Eagle Scout (yes, he has the Space Exploration merit badge) and went to Space Camp four times as a kid and a fifth time as an adult. He has journalism degrees from the University of Southern California and New York University. To see his latest project, you can follow Tariq on Twitter.