Archive · 20 Aug 2026
Fortnite Offline as Chapter 7 Season 4 Update Deploys
Fortnite is temporarily closed while Epic Games adds a large new update.
The update is called v42.00 and is expected to begin Chapter 7 Season 4.
Players could not join matches because matchmaking was turned off.
Some players thought the problem was an unexpected outage.
However, the downtime was planned maintenance.
Reports on Downdetector increased while players saw matchmaking errors.
The servers were expected to be down for about four to six hours.
Players may need to download the update before they can play again.
Epic Games took Fortnite offline on August 20 to deploy the v42.00 update.
Matchmaking was disabled shortly before scheduled maintenance began around 2:00 AM ET.
The update is expected to launch Fortnite Chapter 7 Season 4, also called the “Override” update.
Downdetector recorded more than 500 outage reports at one point, later remaining above 300.
Maintenance was expected to last four to six hours, but Epic Games did not guarantee a restart time.
- Who
- Epic Games and Fortnite players.
- What
- Epic Games temporarily disabled Fortnite matchmaking and took the servers offline for the v42.00 update.
- When
- August 20; maintenance began around 2:00 AM ET, or 11:00 AM IST.
- Where
- Fortnite’s online game servers.
- Why
- To deploy the update and prepare the game for Chapter 7 Season 4.
- Update
- v42.00
- Season
- Fortnite Chapter 7 Season 4, also called the “Override” update
- Maintenance start
- Around 2:00 AM ET, or 11:00 AM IST
- Expected downtime
- Roughly four to six hours
- Outage reports
- More than 500 reports at one point on Downdetector, later above 300
- Potential return window
- Approximately 6:00–8:00 AM ET if there are no significant delays
- Player action
- Players may need to download and install v42.00 before returning to matches