When Does Fortnite Downtime End?

Fortnite downtime begun just a little after the live event wrapped up. The current downtime is bringing us into the brand-new season. While there’s some details out there already about what we can expect, it’s always a bit of an unknown when the Fortnite downtime ends. Sometimes, it can take days. With setbacks meaning the game has to loiter on an off screen for longer. But other times its’s back up pretty quickly.

This current changeover is coming for one of our bigger Fortnite updates. Usually, the biggest changes to Fortnite come once per year with the Chapter changeovers. This means everything is new in Battle Royale. But with Fortnite diversifying quite a bit, that’s no longer the entire game. In 2025, the Chapter changeovers aren’t as big as they used to be.

Maybe it’s because the game has so many other modes which will remain the same afterwards. It’s only BR that’s getting a new Chapter really. Or maybe because after seven different Chapters and mini seasons, it’s not quite as big of a deal to go to a new map. It seems the Chapter changeover being smaller is represented in the Fortnite downtime too. There are some big changes to how downtime will work with this update.

Fortnite Downtime to Last Seven Hours

With the game down and the new Chapter update rolling out, how long do we have to wait? There’s already a countdown in-game! We have around 7 hours to wait from when the event ended.

According to Fortnite leakers, the game was supposed be back online around 2 hours after the downtime began! But that hasn’t been the case. It’s still one of the shorter handovers between seasons.

The first time a Fortnite Chapter ended, the game just kind of turned off. A Fortnite live event concluded with the game going into a black hole. And that was it, all we could see for a few days. No official word on what was happening either. Eventually, it came back online when the Fortnite downtime was over. With a new map, new features, loads to explore.

The next time, things were more expected. The last season of Chapter 2 had been a bit of filler while we waited for the new Chapter, and after a live event the game was down for most of a day. We similarly had around a day of Fortnite downtime when Chapter 3 ended.

With this current handover though, we’re expecting it to be as quick as moving between Fortnite seasons! It should 7 hours, provided there’s no problems, then the game will be back up. There’s been longer waits for normal Fortnite updates in the past.

Server Problems

One thing to keep in mind with the Fortnite downtime is the server problems. There’s been some big ones ahead of the event itself.

Despite a server test, and there being less people trying to get in than we’ve seen for a live event in a while, there was still big issues. Players couldn’t get in on time. Plus, those who did had to re-queue multiple times to get in. And abandon parties, it seemed solos was the best way to queue into the game.

These server issues might be repeated with the launch of the new season. So even if the Fortnite downtime is over, we could still have to queue up to actually get into the new Chapter. We’ll just have to see how the Fortnite server copes with demand.

What Happens When the Game is Back Up?

That’s the Fortnite downtime, but what can you expect when the game comes back up? There’s two ways that Chapter updates are normally handled.

The first few Chapter change overs came with a new start for the game. When you jumped in for the first time, you were immediately put on the Battle Bus. Heading into a game against bots to introduce you to the new season. Or in some cases, a cutscene followed by this.

Although, more recently this kind of opening hasn’t been possible. Since there’s so many different games in Fortnite now, it would be weird to put everyone directly into Battle Royale. What if you just wanted to play XP maps for some reason?

Instead, you load into the normal lobby. Then, after you select Battle Royale it rolls into the trailer or other feature that’s mandatory to introduce players. This is the more likely intro we’ll all get, since Festival and other modes won’t be receiving major updates.

What’s going to be different about Fortnite Chapter 7? We’ve had tons of leaks early on, but now the update is nearly here, official patch notes are coming too. We’ve got a new map coming and a whole host of new items. It’ll take a few days to really crack where to land, and how everything is going to work for Chapter 7.