The new season of Fortnite is delayed due to technical issues

As always happens between seasons, Epic Games took Fortnite offline early Friday to do some maintenance and get the game ready for all the new things fans will enjoy. While the outage usually lasts a few hours, Epic ran into an issue that forced it to delay the start of Chapter 5, Season 2.

“Hello everyone, we encountered an unexpected problem during our maintenance and need to extend the downtime by at least 8 additional hours,” post at 9:14 a.m. ET in Fortnite Status X profile read. “We apologize for making everyone wait longer than usual to get into Chapter 5, Season 2 of Battle Royale. The team is working on this as quickly as possible and we will provide another update when we have more information.”

Epic provided an update at 4:00 p.m., letting fans know that work to bring the game back online is ongoing. “Players will be able to download a pre-updated version of v29.00 in approximately 5 hours,” the announcement said. “We appreciate your patience and can’t wait for everyone to be able to tune in.” This means players won’t be able to tune in to the new season until at least 9pm, ie Fortnite will be offline around 6pm.

The delay is a bit unfortunate as new season looks quite fascinating. It’s called Myths and Mortals and focuses on the Greek gods. Along with earning skins for the likes of Aphrodite, Medusa, and Poseidon through the battle pass, you can wield mythical powers like Zeus’ lightning bolts and Icarus’ wings. Epic also added some intriguing new areas to the island, including Mount Olympus and the Underworld of Hades. A ghostly-looking version of the River Styx, guarded by Cerberus, leads to the latter.

Update 3/8 4:40 PM ET: Added more details on how long it takes to resolve technical issues.