Fortnite's creators placed a tombstone Easter egg in the game as tribute to a viral video of a doomed rescue mission

YouTube channel Muselk

The creators of "Fortnite: Battle Royale" are known to add hidden jokes and easter eggs to the game for players to find and decode. 

The latest addition to the island is a tombstone and pile of tires, placed at the site of a rescue mission gone wrong. 

The odd tribute is a reference to a viral video captured by Australian Fortnite streamer Muselk, who found another player, who would later be identified as Chaperdoodle, stuck in a ledge off the side of the island and attempted to help him get back up the cliffside, before it all went wrong. 

Because Fortnite allows players to build stairs and other structures from gathered materials, Muselk immediately tries to build his way down the mountain to rescue the fallen player, only to realize that the distance to the ledge is just out of range of the game's build limit, and his new friend will need an extra boost to reach his rescuer. 

Knowing the new golf carts are equipped with a jump pad on the top, Muselk quickly returns to the top of the cliff, retrieves a cart, and plans to deliver it to his friend at the bottom...by driving off the side. 

The rescue mission goes sour when Chaperdoodle gets in the way of the falling cart, and is knocked off the ledge into the ocean, rendering Muselk's rescue attempts tragically futile.

The video went viral last week on Twitter and the Fortnite subreddit and even garnered attention from the creators at Epic Games, who posted the video on the official Fortnite Twitter account:

On Tuesday, after the game's weekly update, one player noticed that the developers had added the tombstone to the ledge, in honor Chaperdoodle's memory, in addition to the tires, which offer a powerful bounce for any future player that may find themselves trapped on the same ledge.

A video of the easter egg was first posted by reddit user StoreBrandEnigma, and has since been shared by Muselk himself on Twitter: