Fortnite Chapter 5 Season 2 Delayed at the Last Minute

Fortnite Chapter 5 Season 2 has been delayed over some unexpected issues. The forthcoming Fortnite season will consequently be released at least eight hours later than expected.

Fortnite Chapter 5 Season 1 officially ended earlier today, March 8. As per usual, the conclusion of the game's 28th season saw Epic take its servers offline for maintenance in order to prepare its infrastructure for the next big content drop. The downtime was initially expected to end around noon ET on March 8.

But the release of the hit battle royale game's next season has now been postponed, with Epic extending the Fortnite Chapter 5 Season 2 downtime by an additional eight hours. The company cited «an unexpected issue» that cropped up during maintenance as the reason for the decision, without elaborating on the matter. What it did say is that the eight-hour downtime extension is a provisional measure that may still be followed by another delay, depending on the developer's progress in the hours ahead.

Season delays are neither new to Fortnite nor unique to Epic's hit game; software development can be difficult to reconcile with the kind of tight content timelines that successful live-service titles tend to follow. Hiccups of this sort are hence an occasional occurrence. The good news for fans is that Epic's decision to postpone Chapter 5 Season 2 by a mere eight hours suggests the developer is confident it can resolve whatever issues it's currently facing relatively swiftly. Taking this newly communicated delay into account and assuming no further postponements take place, it is possible that the 29th Fortnite season will drop around 5pm ET on March 8.

Time Zone

Downtime

PT

March 8, 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM

ET

March 8, 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM

CT

March 8, 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM

GMT

March 8, 9:00 PM – 11:00 PM

CET

March 8, 10:00 PM – March 9, 12:00 AM

KST

March 9, 6:00 AM – 8:00 AM

JST

March 9, 6:00 AM – 8:00 AM

ACT

March 9, 8:00 AM – 10:00 AM

NZDT

March 9, 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM

These are only estimations based on the