'Fortnite' 4.5 Update Time: Patch With Playground Mode Hits Wednesday

Today is Tuesday, which means that usually the Fortnite servers would go offline at 4 a.m. Eastern to undergo maintenance before developer Epic Games rolls out an update to the game, big or small. Rest assured, big changes are coming to Fortnite.

Except nothing has happened … yet.

Epic Games confirmed via Twitter at 1:20 p.m. Eastern that downtime for version 4.5 update would begin on Wednesday, June 27 at the usual start time of 4 a.m. Eastern.

This feels like a slight delay rather than a planned schedule, but maybe this was the company’s plan all along? In a “State of Development” post from May, the Epic Games team outlined ongoing behind-the-scenes plans, and many of the features talked about in the post could make it into the new update.

Recently, Epic Games has talked about gameplay balancing adjustments and a Playground limited-time game mode, so we know that the version 4.5 update will be significant. @TwoEpicBuddies even leaked some changes to the map via Twitter.

All of these alterations were expected to happen on Tuesday morning, but now they’ll happen on Wednesday instead, an unprecedented development for the Fortnite update schedule.

It’s possible that something behind the scenes caused a delay with the update. When Inverse played a few rounds of Battle Royale on Monday night, the server response time was more delayed than usual. That could indicate that bugs are causing problems for the Fortnite servers, and they’d likely need to be addressed before any major updates go out.

But for all we know, maybe Epic Games always planned for version 4.5 to roll out on June 27. Typically, the company updates the game on Tuesday mornings and then activates the Weekly Reset on Thursday mornings, but this week that cycle will happen on Wednesday and Thursday instead … unless version 4.5 pushes the Weekly Reset even further into the week?

Earlier this season, the company did shift the weekly reset time from Thursdays to Tuesdays, so it’s possible that could happen again.

So far, there’s no official word from Epic Games on the official Fortnite news blog regarding what exactly is in the version 4.5 update, but expect patch notes to go live there tomorrow after the update.

Fortnite: Battle Royale’s superhero-themed Season 4 kicked off with a bunch of meteor strikes, and recent teases indicate that some kind of rocket launch could reshape the map before Season 5.

Between now and the end of Season 4 — currently slated for July 9 — fans are eagerly expecting the release of a sandbox-style “Playground” limited-time mode, which will let players experience the Fortnite: Battle Royale island in whatever way they please.

For now, however, we all have to wait until Wednesday, June 27 to know exactly what’s included in version 4.5.

This article has been updated from its original version first published on June 26, 2018 at 10:01 a.m. Eastern.