Fortnite's new season arrived over 24 hours later than expected. Here's what happened.
Fortnite players were excited to log on to play the brand new season on Friday morning but were surprised to find themselves waiting in a long queue and unable to play the Myths & Mortals game.
Here's what we know.
Why was Fortnite not working?
According to Epic Games, the server was down for scheduled maintenance for the v29.00 update from 3 to 9 a.m. EST on March 8, which is why players who tried to access the game while it was offline saw an error.
How long was Fortnite down? How long did the update take?
While the update was originally only supposed to take six hours, 25 hours elapsed before the game was fully operational again, meaning most users were unable to play the new season until the following day.
On the Fortnite status page, users noticed on Friday morning the maintenance end time was pushed back to 10 a.m. shortly before @FortniteStatus on X, formerly Twitter, announced around 9:15 a.m. that the update would take an additional eight hours.
Hey everyone, we encountered an unexpected issue during our maintenance and we need to extend downtime at least 8 additional hours.
We apologize for making everyone wait longer than usual to drop into Chapter 5 Season 2 of Battle Royale. The team is working through this as… pic.twitter.com/gsu79mGMiJ— Fortnite Status (@FortniteStatus) March 8, 2024
That would mean the update would have been complete by 5:15 p.m. but at 4 p.m. @FortniteStatus announced a pre-downloaded version of the game would not be available for another five hours.
We’re continuing the work to bring Fortnite back online. Players will be able to pre-download an updated version of v29.00 in approximately 5 hours.
We’re grateful for your patience and can’t wait for everyone to be able to jump in. ⚡💛 pic.twitter.com/lcresJjEuc— Fortnite Status (@FortniteStatus) March 8, 2024
This meant the game would not be downloadable until 9:15 p.m., almost 12 hours after it was initially to be live.
One player noted on X, "Pre-download in 5 hours doesn't guarantee that the game will be live in 5 hours."
That player was correct.
It was not until 10:30 a.m. on March 9 that the company announced on X that v29.00 was officially online, over 24 hours after its intended release.
The curse from us opening Pandora’s Box has lifted - v29.00 is live! ⚡
Thank you everyone for being patient with us while we worked through this extended downtime, it’s greatly appreciated. pic.twitter.com/wb2HxhaNcc— Fortnite Status (@FortniteStatus) March 9, 2024
Players of the game took to social media to respond to added time to the outage
Many users took to X to express their feelings about the scheduled maintenance and its extension.
From genuine frustration to memes, you can find some of their responses below.
Fortnite players react to outage:Fortnite is down and people on social media reacted about how you'd expect
What is Fortnite?
Fortnite is a popular online game that can be played across different platforms including Android phones, PC, Xbox, PlayStation and others.
It was released in 2017 by Epic Games.
Can I access the new season of Fortnite now?
Yes! At the time of publication, all systems are operational, according to Epic Game's Status website. Fortnite players should be able to boot up the game and access the new season: Chapter 5 Season 2: Myths & Mortals now.
Katie Wiseman is a trending news intern at IndyStar. Contact her at klwiseman@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter @itskatiewiseman.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Fortnite servers were down for 24 hours ahead of Chapter 5 Season 2.