Fortnite developer Epic Games will take Battle Royale, Creative and Save the World offline for server maintenance as part of the release of update 20.40. Fortnite’s next major update has a May 17 release date on PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PC, Android and Switch. Needless to say, version 20.40 launches alongside a period of server downtime, which means the game will be offline in the early morning. If you’re wondering how long Fortnite will be offline for server maintenance, check out the details below for the full update 20.40 downtime schedule.
According to Epic Games on Twitter, Fortnite matchmaking will be disabled at 8.30am BST in the UK.
If you’re already in a match before 8.30am, you can continue to play until servers go offline in full at 9am BST UK time.
At 9am BST (4am ET), all players will be kicked out of Fortnite until downtime comes to an end. In the meantime, you’ll be able to download and install the new update.
The news was announced by Epic Games on Twitter: “Sidle in for a showdown! The v20.40 update is scheduled for release on May 17th. Downtime will begin at 04:00 AM ET, with matchmaking disabled 30 minutes beforehand.”
Epic would follow-up this tweet by confirming that matchmaking has since been disabled: “We’re beginning to disable matchmaking in preparation for the v20.40 update, with server downtime beginning soon. We’ll let you all know when downtime has ended!”
While there’s no official end time for the server maintenance, downtime typically lasts for around two hours.
This means you’ll be able to jump back in to Fortnite at around 11am BST at the very latest. Express Online will keep this article updated with any new developments.
As for what fans can expect from the update, Epic’s tweet suggests the war between The Seven and IO will continue in earnest.
The Fortite developer has also announced plans to make V-bucks available across all devices. It’s all part of the Shared Wallet scheme.
More to follow…