Fortnite is down and its servers are offline: What we know so far
Epic's hit battle royale game Fortnite is experiencing a major outage at a very inconvenient time: when most kids are out of school and looking to use the new skins they got for Christmas. The problem, which Epic is still investigating at this time, seems to be a very large one, as players are unable to log in to their accounts and the game servers have been taken offline.
Fortnite is totally offline
Earlier today, Fortnite players began mass reporting issues logging into the game across social media, prompting a statement from Epic Games noting that it is investigating the matter. A couple of hours later, the company returned with a less than enthusiastic update: the game's services are offline, players can't log in, and the company is still working on a fix.
Fast-forward another two hours to around 3 PM ET today, and Epic said that Fortnite's game services are now offline, and though it hasn't said exactly what is wrong, the company did hint at "stability issues" that may be fueling the problem. Epic notes that it is looking for a solution, which indicates it may not yet have a fix in the pipeline and, therefore, this may end up being one of the longer game outages we've seen during the title's lifetime.
In addition to following the Fortnite Status Twitter account, which publishes tweets when there's a problem and when that problem is fixed, players can also bookmark Epic's dedicated Fortnite Status website, which lists current outages, the most recent updates on the matter, and details about which services are impacted.
As of the time of this article, the status website shows that while the Fortnite website and Crew subscriptions are operational, every other service has been hit with a "major outage" — this includes matchmaking, logging in, game services, parties, voice chat, the Item Shop, leaderboards, and messaging.
Epic Games Store takes a hit, too
In addition to Fortnite, Epic also reports that its Epic Games Store is experiencing issues, though not quite as drastic ones. Users may experience "degraded performance" when attempting to log in to the game store, downloading and installing games, and similar. Rocket League is likewise experiencing some small issues, but it is currently limited to degraded performance when it comes to logging in and accessing game services.