UPDATE 2: Fortnite developer Epic Games has posted a new update about the downtime.
The Fortnite servers remain offline, and there’s currently no ETA on when they’ll be back.
“No ETA on Fortnite’s return, but we’ll get you back in the game as soon as we can!” reads a new tweet.
UPDATE: Fortnite developer Epic Games has confirmed that severs are down and maintenance has started on PS4, Xbox One and PC.
“Downtime has started for Patch V.2.3.0. What’s new? See for yourself in this weeks patch notes!” reads an Epic tweet.
There’s still no word on when Fortnite will be back online and matchmaking enabled.
ORIGINAL: Fortnite servers are down, as Epic takes the game offline ahead of two major updates.
PS4, Xbox One and PC fans will notice that matchmaking has been disabled for Fortnite Battle Royale and that the servers are down.
This is because Epic is releasing two new Fortnite updates on PS4, Xbox One and PC.
One update will deal with bug fixes and new content releases, while the other will fix server issues.
Developer Epic Games confirmed that Fortnite Matchmaking will be disabled while the new patches are deployed.
This means that Fortnite servers will be down until the new updates have been launched successfully on PS4, Xbox One and PC.
The downtime started at 9am UK time, but there’s no word on how long it will last.
New content includes a new Chug Jug item that can be used to fully heal health and shields in Battle Royale mode.
“We’ll be starting downtime for V.2.3.0 tomorrow, January 25 at 4:00am ET (09:00am GMT). What’re you pumped for?” the message from the support team reads.
On top of the new Fortnite update, Epic is also deploying new server changes to the North America region.
Servers will be split into separate regions based on whether you live in east or west North America.
The full patch notes can be found below:
With the launch of 2.3.0, we will be making some changes to our Server Regions in North America:
- North America will be split into: NA East + NA West.
- NA East servers are located in: Virginia and Ohio (this is currently NA today).
- NA West servers are located in: Northern California and Oregon (new).
- Many players on west coast U.S. + Canada, along with parts of Mexico, will have ping improvement ranging from minor to major (ping cut in half in some cases).
- You should auto-route to the most optimal region, but we recommend double checking your settings once 2.3.0 is live.
- Playing with friends in other regions is still 100% seamless. You just party up as normal and the Party Leader’s region will determine the region for the match.
Why are there now two datacenters per region:
- Matches are currently randomly distributed between them (Virginia/Ohio for NA East for example).
- Long-term we are looking to make this more intelligent and seamlessly group players into the best possible experience.
- The datacenters within each region have very small ping variance for majority of players.
- We need to run in multiple datacenters to support player counts and have redundancy in the case of datacenter-specific issues.