The Fortnite servers have been down for quite some time right now. The extended downtime could be related to the sheer amount of content that was added to the game in the Fortnite update on March 20. Fortnite data miner iFiremonkey believes that the Fortnite servers will be back up at 9am Eastern Time since the lobby background is set to activate at that time.
Currently all of the Chapter 3 - Season 2 stuff such as the lobby background is set to activate at 9 AM Eastern Time, so maybe this is when downtime will end.
— iFireMonkey (@iFireMonkey) March 20, 2022
Related: How to get the Doctor Strange skin in Fortnite Chapter 3 Season 2
The Fortnite servers don't usually have such a high downtime unless it is attributed to some technical error on the server side. Today's extensive downtime can also be attributed to the same issue. The official Fortnite Status Twitter stated that they are currently investigating a server issue that is preventing Fortnite Chapter 3 Season 2 from going live for everyone around the world.
We’re continuing to investigate a server issue preventing us from opening up Fortnite game servers for everyone to log-in.
We appreciate everyone's patience and will provide an update when Chapter 3 Season 2 has officially launched.
— Fortnite Status (@FortniteStatus) March 20, 2022
The fact that Epic Games never really announces when the servers go live after every update makes things very confusing for everyone. Without an estimated time for the servers to go live on update days such as today, it's really difficult to tell if the servers were deliberately shut down for some further content tweaking or if the servers were overloaded with players. We'll update this piece once the servers have gone live.
While you're waiting for the servers to come back online, check out How to get the Prowler Skin in Fortnite Chapter 3 Season 2 on Pro Game Guides.
