Fortnite: everything you need to know about the world’s biggest game

The launch of Fortnite’s Greek mythology-themed Chapter 5: Season 2 had been on hold since early Friday morning after the usual downtime for maintenance didn’t end on schedule. Epic usually takes the servers down at 3AM ET to prepare for a big update, but only for a few hours. This time, the battle royale game stayed offline until well into Friday evening.

After 9PM ET, players started to report they were able to download updates and get into the game. However, many people said they were still waiting in queues to log in or getting error messages when they tried to play. Eventually, the Epic Games status page tracking downtime related to the v29.00 update said everything is operational now that the maintenance window is over.

Fortnite is going even more old school for its next season. Epic just launched Chapter 5: Season 2 of the battle royale game, dubbed “Myths & Mortals,” and it’s all about Greek mythology. That means playing as Greek gods, fighting across Mount Olympus, and wielding Zeus’ thunderbolt. The launch was preceded by a clever in-game event involving Pandora’s box.

First up, the new locations. A number of mythological locales have been added to the map, including Mount Olympus and the underworld, which, naturally, is guarded by Cerberus. To go along with this are a number of power-ups and items to collect, including the Wings of Icarus so you can fly, Zeus’ bolts which let you “rise into the air and hurl lightning bolts at your target,” and a weapon called the Chains of Hades that’s coming later on.

Epic Games is adding a new voice reporting feature into Fortnite to help catch players who break the company’s community rules.

If the feature is on — if you’re under 18, the feature is always on when using voice chats — the device you’re playing the game on will securely capture the past five minutes of audio on a “rolling basis,” according to Epic’s blog post. (Epic stresses that it does not store voice recordings on its servers unless you file a report.) Audio after five minutes is deleted.

Fortnite maker Epic Games is going to reward creators if players spend V-bucks before or after visiting that creator’s custom-made Fortnite experience. The change is happening as part of an update announced Wednesday to the engagement-based formula Epic uses to pay Fortnite creators.

Epic first introduced the engagement-based payouts (which it calls “Creator Economy 2.0”) in March. Under the program, Epic pays creators who build experiences for Fortnite from a pool of 40 percent of Fortnite’s net revenues each month. Epic itself is also eligible to receive money from that pool. At launch, two of Epic’s key engagement metrics for payouts were player popularity and player retention, and soon after, the company added a metric that rewards time played.

This year, Fortnite’s big Halloween update included an unwelcome surprise: a redesign that aggressively pushes players toward creator-made experiences and spending money in the in-game store.

The biggest change is on the “Play” tab that serves as the game’s lobby. In addition to showing you things like your current game mode and which friends are in your party, you’ll now see a partial row of icons on the bottom of the screen, tempting you to scroll toward them to see what they’re about. If you do, you’ll see a horizontal list of what appears to be previous modes you’ve played and some suggested ones for you to check out. Keep scrolling down and you’ll find seemingly infinite lists of recommended experiences, many with garish thumbnails that feel like the kinds you’d see on YouTube.

You can now apply to receive a refund from Fortnite maker Epic Games’ $245 million settlement with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The FTC alleged that Fortnite players bought in-game goods on accident because of design tricks, and the two parties agreed to the settlement, which was announced as part of a broader $520 million settlement in December.

You can visit www.ftc.gov/Fortnite to apply for the refund and learn more information. The FTC says that you can apply if any of the following is true:

Donald Mustard ran a successful studio that showed what the Xbox and iPhone were capable of. Then, he became the face of one of the biggest and boldest storytelling experiments in history, to borrow a phrase, with Fortnite’s massive metaverse.

Now, he’s done: Mustard, chief creative officer at Epic Games, says he’s retiring this month.

Epic Games is reviving its in-game Fortnite concert series with a virtual performance by electronic artist Kaskade over the course of the March 26th weekend. The concert will take place inside Fortnite’s Party Royale game mode, and it will also feature tie-ins with Rocket League’s upcoming season, as the popular competitive car soccer game is developed by Epic-owned studio Psyonix.

There’s a lot of, shall we say, corporate synergy going on here. Psyonix has a longstanding partnership with electronic music label Monstercat to bring leading producers of house, bass, and other genres into Rocket League’s in-game soundtrack. And Kaskade just last fall released his Monstercat debut, an EP called Reset.

Fortnite experienced game-wide problems with logins earlier on Monday, keeping some players from accessing their accounts. The company instituted downtime while it investigated the issues, but said that things were fixed at 6:09PM ET.

While the issues were going on, some players were seeing messages saying they didn’t have permission to play the game. According to the game’s official status account, though, “Players who see a message saying ‘You do not have permission to play Fortnite’ or ‘Your account no longer has play access to Fortnite’ because of this issue are not banned from Fortnite.”

You can now buy an X-Wing glider in Fortnite, Epic Games announced Monday. The new glider has become available the same day EA released a new animated short introducing the story of Star Wars: Squadrons. The glider costs 1,200 V-Bucks.

This isn’t the first time a Star Wars-themed item has appeared in Fortnite. You could buy a number of cosmetics, including skins for Rey and Finn and a First Order Tie Fighter glider, as part of a major crossover event around the release of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker last year, and you could get the Millennium Falcon as part of the game’s last Winterfest event. And EA and Epic have teamed up to help promote Star Wars games in the past, too. A stormtrooper was added to Fortnite with the release of Jedi: Fallen Order in November, and you could get it for free if you bought the game on the Epic Games Store.

A Captain America skin is now available in Fortnite, Epic Games announced today. He’s the latest comic-themed skin to be added to the popular free-to-play battle royale game.

Captain America costs 2,000 V-bucks (about $20) from the Fortnite in-game store. If you buy the skin, you’ll also get Captain America’s iconic shield, which isn’t just cosmetic — you’ll be able to wear it on your back and use it as a pickaxe in-game. Captain America’s shield has actually already appeared in the game before — you could wield it last year as a special item in a limited time Avengers-themed mode, but you weren’t able to buy it to wear whenever you wanted.

Epic Games has delayed Fortnite’s next in-game live event and the start of the game’s next season due to widespread outrage over the death of George Floyd and ongoing police brutality in response to protests around the country. The in-game live event, titled “The Device,” will now take place on June 15th. The next season, called Chapter 2 Season 3, will begin on June 17th.

“We’re acutely aware of the pain our friends, families, team members, players, and communities are experiencing,” Epic said in a blog post. “We believe in equality and justice, diversity and inclusion, and that these fundamentals are above politics. The team is eager to move Fortnite forward, but we need to balance the Season 3 launch with time for the team to focus on themselves, their families, and their communities.”

Astroworld is heading to a virtual world. Today, Epic Games revealed that the next in-game Fortnite concert will be headlined by rapper Travis Scott, and it’s set to take place across several days this week. The concert even has a name: Astronomical. Epic describes it as “an other-worldly experience inspired by Cactus Jack’s creations, built from the ground up in Fortnite.” It will include the debut of a brand-new song.

Whereas previous Fortnite events have been one-off shows, Scott’s Astronomical is something more akin to a virtual concert tour. It will take place over multiple days so that fans will be able to more easily attend in different time zones. Here’s the schedule:

When the current season of Fortnite debuted, one of the most curious elements was the appearance of Deadpool. The Marvel anti-hero was present in various elements of the game — you could find him hidden away in a bathroom in the main battle pass menu — but you couldn’t actually play as him. That changes today, however, with the debut of a new Deadpool skin.

The skin is available to everyone who purchased this season’s battle pass, and it’s pretty easy to unlock; all you have to do is find two pistols hidden in the menu screens. Once you do that, simply head into a match and change into the Deadpool skin at any of the phone booths littered across the island.

Helicopters are now in Fortnite. The battle royale game’s latest update added the flying vehicles as well as a handful of other welcome features, including maps changes and a redesigned locker. It’s a big shift, but one that fits in well with the latest season’s secret agent theme. The helicopters can be used by up to four players at a time, making them ideal for squad play, and they appear to tie into the mysterious Deadpool appearance in the game’s new season. They join boats as the only current vehicles in the game. You can find them scattered around the map — though, at least right now, there’s generally a fight to be the first to grab the controls.

Of course, this isn’t the first aerial vehicle to be featured in the game. Longtime Fortnite players will remember the airplanes that were added in season 7, which caused so much havoc that they were eventually removed one season later.

Fortnite is weird again — and I couldn’t be happier. The game’s latest season finally launched yesterday and, on the surface at least, it seems like a standard update. It has a new secret agent theme, with opposing factions and lots of new stealth gameplay options. But look beyond the well-tailored suits and you’ll find something even more notable: Fortnite’s offbeat personality is back in full force.

That’s something that was desperately missing from the previous season. When Fortnite kicked off its ambitious reboot to chapter 2 in September of last year, it felt exciting at first. Everything was new again. But that initial excitement eventually waned.

Fortnite’s latest season is shaken, not stirred. After months of waiting, the second season of Fortnite: Chapter 2 is finally here, and it introduces a secret agent theme to the battle royale game. That includes new “top-secret hideouts” scattered across the island, more stealth gameplay features like “decoy grenades” and secret passages, as well as the usual assortment of new characters and skins to unlock if you purchase this season’s battle pass.

The battle pass skins include the likes of Peely the banana in a tuxedo, a cat henchmen named Meowscles who can make his pecks dance, and a man with golden hands. Deadpool is also the latest licensed superhero to join Fortnite’s cast, though it’s not clear yet how you unlock him.

Harley Quinn is coming to Fortnite this evening. Developer Epic Games announced a new Harley Quinn skin will be available in its in-game shop at 7PM ET on February 6th, just before the movie starring the famous DC Comics character, Birds of Prey, is released in theaters.

The Harley Quinn skin will be a bundle, which includes other cosmetics like a pickaxe as well as a set of in-game challenges that you can complete to unlock an alternate outfit, appropriately called “Always Fantabulous Harley.”

The long road to season 2 is almost over. Today, Epic Games revealed the release date for the second season of Fortnite Chapter 2, which will launch on February 20th. The disruptive Chapter 2 — which introduced a brand-new island, following a days-long black hole event — first debuted in October. That makes this, by far, Fortnite’s longest season to date. Epic says that, over the next few weeks, players can expect more overtime challenges as well as “a new two-week event.” There’s no real hint yet of what players can expect out of the new season.

In addition to announcing the release date for season 2, Epic also revealed that the game will be getting a major update in early February. The 11.50 update will see the game move over to the Unreal Engine’s Chaos physics engine. “At launch, the goal is to ensure that Fortnite still feels like Fortnite,” the developer says. “Along the way there will be some bumps, so we’re starting tests with a small group of players. We’ll also closely monitor feedback and make improvements over time.”

Fortnite may no longer be the most buzzed-about video game in the world. But developer Epic Games this week announced a new, rather ingenious, strategy to help its battle royale hit remain relevant. The company is calling this new idea the Icon Series, a collection of virtual costumes (or skins, in gaming parlance) that go beyond borrowing characters in popular media properties and instead use real-life people.

For the launch of the Icon Series, Epic turned to Tyler “Ninja” Blevins, the star streamer who’s long been the face of the game and one of the biggest and most recognizable gaming celebrities out there. The Ninja skin, debuting later today in the Fortnite store, is a high-quality virtual representation of Blevins’ imagined avatar, equipped with sleek black-and-blue ninja garb and the streamer’s signature blue hair and yellow headband.

Fortnite is adding a Ninja skin to the game that’ll be available starting tomorrow, January 16th. Tyler “Ninja” Blevins announced the availability on a stream this morning, shouting in excitement.

“It happened. It’s official, we finally got a Ninja skin. In the game. In Fortnite. We did it,” he said.