Fortnite Battle Royale: What is the mysterious purple cube and where is it going?

Theories surrounding the mysterious box moving around the map include aliens and a fourth dimension

A giant purple cube rolling around the map of Fornite: Battle Royale, has baffled players of the popular video game.

The mysterious box first appeared on the Fortnite map on 24 August and has been moving around at regular intervals ever since.

It spawned from a lightning storm on the border of Paradise Palms, and immediately triggered theories surrounding its existence.

The movements of the purple cube have intrigued players of Fortnite Battle Royale (Epic Games)

A website dedicated to the cube's movements has set up a timer that counts down to when the cube is next expected to move. Currently, the cube is moving at intervals of 47 minutes and 30 seconds.

Players have tried attacking the purple cube with weapons but this results in the mysterious cube emitting a lightning strike and damaging their health or even killing them. There are some benefits to the cube, however, with players' shields improving when standing near by.

The cube has been emitting strange lights and noises and has affected the game's gravity, meaning players within its vicinity are able to jump higher and further.

In an effort to unlock its mysteries, some players have carried out various tests on the purple cube, such as spectral analysis of the cube's sounds and research into its symbols.

None of the investigations have proved conclusive, though some theories suggest that the cube is in fact a four-dimensional object that is part of a much bigger object that exists mostly in another dimension.

Popular Youtube gamer Drift0r speculated: "You're only seeing one part of this cube, one three-dimensional projection of it, when there's actually many, many, many more sides to it that you haven't seen."

The design of the cube is reminiscent of the Monoliths from the sci-fi classic 2001: A Space Odyssey, Drift0r noted, which were built by aliens and placed around the Solar System.

The mysterious box in Fortnite Battle Royale is burning symbols into the ground beneath it (Epic Games)

Within a few days of appearing, the purple box sparked even further intrigue after leaving a trail of symbols scorched in its wake.

The path it is taking appears to be leading to Loot Lake, and with less than three weeks left until the end of the game's current season, it is expected to reach the location before the release of Fortnite Season 6.

With more than 100 million Fortnite players playing the game around the world, hopefully one of them will have solved the mystery of the purple cube once and for all by then.