The battle royale juggernaut Fortnite is offline, leaving millions of players staring at error screens instead of dropping into their favorite digital playground. Epic Games pulled the plug early this morning, May 2, 2025, to roll out a massive update for Chapter 6, Season 3—dubbed "Galactic Battle," a Star Wars-themed extravaganza that’s got fans itching to wield lightsabers and pilot X-Wings. But with servers down and no clear end in sight, the question on every gamer’s mind is: when can we get back to blasting Stormtroopers?
The downtime kicked off at 2 a.m. Eastern Time, with matchmaking disabled shortly before. Epic’s official status page confirmed the maintenance is all about deploying patch v35.00, which promises a revamped map with a First Order base, a Resistance outpost, and a smuggler’s den called the Outpost Enclave. The update also brings a new battle pass packed with skins like Darth Sidious, General Grievous, and Poe Dameron, plus iconic weapons like E-11 blasters and pilotable TIE Fighters. For Star Wars nerds, it’s a dream come true—assuming they can actually log in.
Typically, a new season launch means at least four hours of downtime, sometimes stretching longer. Last year’s Chapter 5, Season 2 rollout kept Fortnite offline for a grueling 18 hours, though that was an outlier. Epic hasn’t pinned down an exact return time for today’s maintenance, but based on past season launches, servers could flicker back to life as early as 6 a.m. Eastern Time. If things go south, though, players might be twiddling their thumbs well into the morning.
This isn’t just another update. The Galactic Battle season, announced two weeks ago at Star Wars Celebration in Japan, marks Fortnite’s biggest collaboration with Disney yet. It’s not just skins and weapons—players will get an in-game premiere of two episodes of "Star Wars: Tales of the Underworld" starting at 10 a.m. Central Time today, before the show hits Disney+ on May 4. Link your Epic and MyDisney accounts, and you’ll snag a free First Order Stormtrooper outfit, a little sweetener for those stuck waiting.
Downtime isn’t news to Fortnite veterans. Every major update means servers go dark, and this one’s no exception. The Epic Games status page shows all systems in maintenance mode, with no reported hiccups so far. Still, players hammering the login button might see a "servers not responding" message or a "Matchmaking error 1" code—par for the course during these planned outages. For now, the advice is simple: sit tight, maybe grab a coffee, and keep an eye on Epic’s official channels for updates.
The season’s rollout is structured like a five-week Star Wars saga, with weekly updates bringing new content like Chewbacca’s Bowcaster on May 15 and Mandalorian warriors on May 22. A new point of interest, Vader Samurai’s Solitude, will let players square off against a Darth Vader mini-boss. It’s a lot to take in, and Epic’s clearly betting big on this crossover to keep Fortnite’s crown as the king of battle royales.
No word yet on any delays or technical snags. The update’s file size varies by platform—20.8 GB on PS5, a hefty 71 GB on Xbox Series X—so players should have pre-downloads ready. Until the servers hum back to life, Fortnite’s galaxy is on pause, and fans are left counting the minutes until they can jump into the Star Wars action.