Last month, Fortnite players spent an astounding 3.2 billion hours with the battle royale game. Unfortunately, players will have to turn the game off for a few hours, starting early tomorrow morning. Epic Games has announced that a maintenance patch will require some server downtime for the game, kicking off on May 7th at 2 a.m. ET. At this time, no end time has been announced, but the Fortnite Status Twitter account should keep players informed on when to expect the game to resume. As such, Fortnite fans might want to find a different game to play for a few hours, or consider getting a bit of sleep, in the meantime!
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Downtime is quite common in MMO games, as developers work behind-the-scenes to make sure everything is running smoothly. It’s unknown whether or not Epic Games will provide further details on the reason behind the downtime, but it’s possible that it could be related to the upcoming Party Royale event scheduled for May 8th. The event will feature in-game performances from Dillon Francis, Steve Aoki, and deadmau5, so it might be a bit more technically intricate than previous concert events, thus requiring a bit of maintenance ahead of time.
While many players were disappointed by the delay of Fortnite Chapter 2 Season 3, Epic Games has provided a lot of content for players to enjoy to make up for it. From in-game concerts, to new skins, and the return of popular licensed tie-ins, Fortnite has had a lot going on since the extension of Season 2!
Hi, everybody.
A maintenance patch requiring downtime is scheduled to release on May 7. Downtime will begin at 2 AM ET (0600 UTC).
Weโll update you here both when downtime begins and ends. pic.twitter.com/WTZu7UdcsK
โ Fortnite Status (@FortniteStatus) May 6, 2020
Like many other publishers, Epic Games scheduled the downtime for a time when many players would likely be logged off. Of course, with 350 million registered players worldwide, there are few times when the game doesn’t have a lot of people playing. Still, players shouldn’t expect the maintenance to take too long. It seems likely that players will be back in action in no time at all.
Are you disappointed about the Fortnite downtime? Have you been happy with content in the game over the last few weeks? Let us know in the comments or share directly on Twitter at @Marcdachamp to talk all things gaming!