Fortnite dates The Big Bang live event, as leaks suggest a huge music star will appear

Fortnite has put a date on its next big live event - its first for a full year - now formally named as The Big Bang.

This is the moment Fortnite will transition out of its current OG guise, which has seen all-time record engagement as the game's original map returned, and into something brand new.

The Big Bang will take place live within Fortnite on Saturday 2nd December at 7pm UK time (that's 2pm Eastern, or 11am Pacific), with online leaks suggesting a huge music star will be making a surprise in-game appearance.

"This event marks a new beginning for Fortnite," Epic Games' description of the event teases. Indeed, the event's name suggestions something of a do-over or inversion for the original map's previous apocalyptic event featuring a black hole.

Rather than suck everything in, then, this looks to be an act of creation - and in official artwork for the event we can see the game's original space rocket and battle bus blasting outwards.

Alongside these are some curious other objects - which fans believe all hint at other new modes coming to the game in the near future.

Fortnite and Lego announced plans for a collaboration a while back, and leaks suggest this is now just around the corner, with survival and creative modes similar to Minecraft. A rather Lego-like llama appears in the artwork.

The image also shows a racing wheel and a guitar and microphone, likely hinting at the other modes which fans believe to be launching soon - a musical offering from Rock Band studio Harmonix, and a racing portion from Rocket League maker Psyonix.

But perhaps most surprising is the music star apparently set to also make an appearance in the event. Datamined details have revealed that person - which we'll pop below if you'd prefer to remain unspoiled.

Yes, Eminem appears to be making an appearance in Fortnite soon, with an in-game character skin already spotted by fans. Fortnite is of course no stranger to featuring big music stars in its events (such as Ariana Grande) and does like a celebrity cameo surprise (such as The Rock finally being unmasked during the game's Island-flipping live event a couple of years back).

How will this all play out? There's less than two weeks to go now until we find out.

And in other Fortnite news, Epic Games has now said it will remove the cosmetic gating for the "majority" of in-game items beginning with the game's next big update, while it works on a better, more permanent solution.

Fortnite controversially introduced age ratings to its in-game modes last week and locked certain cosmetics from use within some user-created modes, drawing fan fury as players found themselves suddenly unable to use skins they had bought. While that next big in-game update will come directly after The Big Bang, Epic Games has also said there will be no age gating on any cosmetic for that event, too.