GameSpot may receive revenue from affiliate and advertising partnerships for sharing this content and from purchases through links.

You Can't Play Fortnite Right Now Until Season 5 Starts

Following the Galactus event, Fortnite servers are down until the new season begins.

24 Comments

Fortnite's big Galactus event has come and gone, and it was an exciting, if somewhat brief, live event. It concluded with the confirmation of when Season 5 will begin, but perhaps more notable right now is that you can't play Fortnite. Servers are down, and that's by design.

The live event concluded with a "to be continued in Season 5" message, along with a seven-hour countdown that reveals a start time for Season 5: 12 AM ET on December 2. However, rather than sending players back to the menu to continue playing or grinding away at the battle pass, the only option is "exit." That closes out the game, and re-opening it only replays this short message from the end of the event. There's no way to access any component of the game right now, even including something like Fortnite Creative or Save the World, let alone the Battle Royale mode that functions as the game's main aspect.

Please use a html5 video capable browser to watch videos.
This video has an invalid file format.
00:00:00
Sorry, but you can't access this content!
Please enter your date of birth to view this video

By clicking 'enter', you agree to GameSpot's
Terms of Use and Privacy Policy

Now Playing: Full Fortnite Galactus Event PC Gameplay

As Epic said in advance, you can't replay the event, but it turns out you can't do anything. Hopefully you didn't have plans to play Fortnite tonight. This isn't the first time Epic has done this--previously, it shut down Fortnite for days, which proved to be quite the unexpected viral moment. It's not often a massively popular game is shut down in that fashion. In this case, the wait won't be quite so long--following the conclusion of the Galactus event, there were just over seven hours until Season 5 begins and Fortnite returns.

What Time Will Fortnite Be Back?

It turns out you still won't be able to play even after this countdown ends. Epic announced on Twitter that Fortnite is in a "prep state" for Season 5 and the v15.00 update that will be released to kick it off. Server downtime will commence at 12 AM and run for four hours, which means Fortnite will become playable at 1 AM PT / 4 AM ET / 9 AM GMT. Of course, that's barring any issues that might arise and necessitate maintenance to be extended.

We still don't really know what to expect from Season 5, but it appears it may continue the story of Jonesy that was teased as part of The Device event. Beyond that, we really don't know much, but stay tuned.

Got a news tip or want to contact us directly? Email news@gamespot.com

Join the conversation
There are 24 comments about this story