Fortnite Servers Offline: What You Need to Know About Update 42.40

TVS News AI, editorially supervised, presents Fortnite Servers Offline: What You Need to Know About Update 42.40.

Today, Thursday (10/15/2026), Fortnite players know the drill: grab a coffee or tea and squeeze in one more session – because the servers don't go offline until around 10 a.m. to roll out 42.40. So if you were planning to jump into a match with your friends around that hour, you've still got a small window of time. The bad news: matchmaking isn't disabled only when the servers fully shut down – it goes off a half hour earlier, so expect no new lobbies from 9:30 a.m. onward.

How long you'll have to wait

Epic will take the servers down "almost certainly at 10 a.m." according to GamePro – that's been the case for every recent update. Only the season switch kicked off earlier, at 8 a.m. How long the outage lasts varies from update to update. Based on experience, you should be able to play again around midday, typically between 11:30 a.m. and 1 p.m.. Only in exceptional cases does it run longer. If you want to track the exact sequence, the site has covered recent server downs for Updates 42.20 and 42.30 with dedicated live tickers over the past few weeks – today's pattern should look similar.

What Update 42.40 brings as the final Season 4 patch

This is the final patch for Season 4 – and naturally, plenty of collabs are on the menu. Fitting for the season, Halloween brands are on the docket, including Slender Man and Beetlejuice, which were teased thematically last time. Anime fans have reason to be excited too: there's speculation that a One Piece teaser will surface in the update, since the next mini-season may carry a matching theme. According to GamePro, you'll get more details while the servers are still offline – that's when a flood of leaks from the datamining community rolls in.

Where to find the live ticker

GamePro is going live again during the server down and will keep you supplied "with all the leaks and info while you wait." You can find the ticker on the server-down article page – confirmed changes, the estimated maintenance duration, and the first leaks will trickle in there. If you want the official word, check in with Epic directly at the same time: the official Fortnite channels and the status section on the website are usually the first to confirm when maintenance starts and when the servers are back.

What this means for your gaming day today

Concretely: if you still want to start a match, you've got until around 9:30 a.m. – after that, matchmaking won't accept new players. You can usually finish your current match, but by 10 a.m. at the latest, it's over. Best to cash in your login bonus, claim any open Battle Pass rewards, or tidy up your inventory now before the servers cut. As soon as maintenance ends and the servers come back up, you can jump back in between 11:30 a.m. and 1 p.m. – and see firsthand which of the leaks actually made it into the update.

We'll be live once more during the server down and get you all the leaks and info as fast as possible while you wait.