18 January 2023 , 06:00
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Fortnite will receive its first major update of 2023 today, with the highly-anticipated 23.20 update due to roll out shortly.
UPDATED 8.38am GMT, Wednesday, January 18: Epic Games confirmed via the @FortniteStatus Twitter account that the 23.20 Fortnite update will be rolling out on all platforms this morning as expected. Matchmaking is currently in the process of being disabled, which means that the server downtime won't be too far away now!
The Fortnite 23.20 update will go live at around 9am GMT / 4am ET / 1am PT on Wednesday, January 18, 2023. As stated above, the servers begin to go offline around 30 minutes beforehand, so we expect that to happen 8.30am GMT / 3.30am ET / 12.30am PT.
The rolling out of Fortnite updates tend to take four hours, so if it all goes smoothly, expect to see Fortnite servers back online at around 1pm GMT / 8am ET / 5am PT. Once they're live, if update 23.20 hasn't automatically downloaded, you can manually poke it into action and get playing after the new patch.
Major Fortnite updates are typically released on a Tuesday, so we were expecting update 23.20 to arrive yesterday. But it was pushed back by 24 hours. While we don't know for certain, this may have been because of the US observing a national holiday (Martin Luther King Day) on January 16.
Fortnite has made it impossible for new battle royale games to succeed
The Fortnite update procedure tends to follow a typical pattern. Matchmaking is typically disabled around 30 minutes before the downtime begins, and the downtime can then continue for up to four hours following the update being rolled out. Fortnite content updates tend to be rolled out every two weeks, but there hasn't been one yet in 2023 due to the Christmas period.
Update 23.20 will be the battle royale title's first major content update of 2023, following the release of a small patch that was released last week, which removed the controversial Shockwave Hammer from the game. The weapon has since been re-introduced, but it's been nerfed in the process, much to the delight of millions of players.
Fortnite update 23.20: patch notes
As we're still waiting for the update, we don't have any confirmed patch notes to crawl through just yet, but there are some changes we can confidently predict, whilst others are more speculative.
Looking at the official Fortnite Trello board, there are a number of issues that have been given a 'Fixed in Future Game Update' label, so we expect the following issues could be fixed and included in the Fortnite update 23.20 patch notes on release:
Bonus Rewards 'Pre-requisite Not Met' Issue
The "Aerialist" Augment has been temporarily disabled
Firing a weapon while sprinting and jumping may not register the hit
Opening the Map or Quests while using Split-screen causes the 2nd player’s view to turn black.
The "Party Time" Augment has been temporarily disabled.
Wildlife takes fall damage with fall damage set to off (Fortnite Creative)
Fortnite update 23.40 patch notes reveal exotic weapons and Fortnite Most Wanted
Prop Mover behavior is inconsistent (Fortnite Creative)
Placing a prop and switching to the pickaxe at the same time places an invisible prop (Fortnite Creative)
Players can build in Mutator Zone Devices with "Allow Building" set to "No" in certain instances (Fortnite Creative)
Props may turn green while selecting after placing them under terrain (Fortnite Creative)
Tiles can become invisible in color switch game mode (Fortnite Creative)
Although it's unlikely for update 23.20, Epic Games could finally introduce the Unreal Editor for Fortnite (UEFN) today. UEFN was first announced in May 2021, but Epic's founder and CEO Tim Sweeney later explained on Twitter that the UEFN had been delayed until late January 2023. But, we think this is more likely to be introduced to the game ready for the launch of Chapter 4 Season 2.