When is the Next Fortnite Update Coming?

When is the next Fortnite update? We’ve had the current Chapter of Fortnite since the end of November. A new map, re-done weapons, but it’s not the most revolutionary Chapter. The map isn’t anything crazy, and the meta is one of the simplest we’ve had lately. There’s not a lot of change otherwise. The meta has gotten a bit stale over the last few weeks, as we’ve not any content updates in a while. But the next Fortnite update will actually be coming very soon.

The Winterfest event is always fun for a bit. The snow, and the presents. Even getting the in-game holiday items that are back every year. Although, players typically end up awaiting a new patch pretty eagerly. It feels like a longer time than it might actually be. This week we’ve seen Epic come back off their Winter break. Which means bugs like the recent XP glitch got fixed really quite quickly. But there’s still a little while to go before we get an actual update.

This is when we’re expecting the next Fortnite update and what’s most likely to come in the new patch:

When is the Next Fortnite Update?

The next Fortnite update is going to be out first since before Winterfest began. We’re expecting it to arrive on January 9th, 2026!

The next Fortnite update will be the first one in 2026. It’s coming after quite a few weeks without updates. And the ones before Winterfest were really just trying to fine tune the recent additions with the new Chapter’s content. Like slightly nerfing the best AR, introducing some filler Fortnite weapon like the Sovereign Shotguns. There hasn’t been any huge changes yet.

The current season has maintained its player numbers fairly well, at least compared to the last two full length seasons. Those were really a recent low for the game. Chapter 7 hasn’t been quite as popular as the start of the last two Chapters, but it hasn’t really introduced as much of a major change. No huge mobility mechanics or gameplay changes, outside of the rift effects, which don’t really come into play most games. It’s more of a refresh. We’ll still expecting the next Fortnite update to introduce a bit more though.

What exactly are we expecting? The next update should liven things up a bit again.

What’s Coming in the Update?

The next Fortnite update will finish off Winterfest and re-start the normal season. The first change is probably going to be removing the snow from that part of the map. We’ll also probably see some changes to the loot pool. The best Fortnite weapons will likely need a bit of a rebalance now they’ve developed into more of a meta over the month. We normally see the over performs get a bit of a nerf.

The other changes we’re expecting will be more Fortnite collabs. Epic has already announced Fortnite X South Park will be arriving very soon. Outside of this, the contents of the next Fortnite update are a mystery. We’ll have to wait and see what happens when the game comes back from its downtime.