Fortnite is back online. If you were locked out this morning, the wait is over.
Epic Games took the servers down at 4 AM ET on April 30, 2026 to roll out update v40.30 for Chapter 7 Season 2: Showdown. As of now, the official Epic Games status page shows all systems fully operational. Fortnite, matchmaking, login, voice chat, the item shop — everything is green.
You can jump back in.
What Happened This Morning?
The downtime was planned, not a crash. Epic disabled matchmaking 30 minutes before servers went offline, which is standard procedure before a major update. This was the third big update for Chapter 7 Season 2, so the season still has plenty of runway left.
The Epic Games status page confirms no degraded performance or partial outages anywhere across their services right now.
What’s New in the v40.30 Update?
The headline feature this time around is custom matches, and it’s one players have been asking about for a while.
You can now set up your own match in Battle Royale or Zero Build and adjust the settings to your preference. Want to tweak Storm Wait Time? Change player health or shields? That’s all on the table now. It’s not a full creative sandbox, but it gives players a lot more control over how a match actually plays out.
Content creators especially should find this useful. Running custom games for your audience just got a lot easier.
What Are the Leaks Saying?
A few things are reportedly in the pipeline beyond today’s update.
A Star Wars collab is rumored for around May 4, which is basically a Fortnite tradition at this point. The game has tied into Star Wars almost every year around that date, so this one wouldn’t surprise anyone.
On top of that, leaks suggest a Ratatouille Sidekick is coming. Yes, the Pixar movie about the cooking rat. And then there are the Overwatch characters, which are supposedly getting introduced into the Fortnite timeline as well.
None of this is confirmed by Epic, and leak timelines don’t always match up with actual release dates. But if even part of this lands over the next few weeks, the season has some genuinely fun surprises ahead.
Recent Downtime History
Today’s maintenance went smoothly, but Fortnite did have an unplanned hiccup recently. On April 17, matchmaking went down unexpectedly for about an hour and 25 minutes before Epic fixed it. That was the last real disruption before today.
Everything else over the past couple of weeks has been clean, and today’s scheduled maintenance wrapped up without any reported issues.
So, Is Fortnite Up Right Now?
Yes. Fully. All systems are operational as confirmed on the official Epic Games status page.
If you’re still having trouble connecting, it’s worth restarting your game client or checking your own internet connection. The issue at this point is almost certainly on your end, not Epic’s.
Stay in the Loop
Bookmark status.epicgames.com if you want instant updates the next time something goes wrong. Epic posts there in real time whenever there’s an outage or maintenance window.
And if you want to keep up with Fortnite news, patch notes, and gaming tools, head over to GamerUrge.com. We cover updates like this as they happen, so you’re never left guessing whether the servers are up or down.
