Here’s The Exact Time ‘Fortnite’ Chapter 6, Season 1 Ends And Season 2 Begins
FORTNITE
The current season of Fortnite is about to end, so make sure you’ve wrapped up all your challenges and finished every tier of the Chapter 6, Season 1 Battle Pass. Only hours remain before a new season drops and the Demon Hunters season draws to a close.
A plethora of new content awaits, from major changes to the Fortnite map, new weapons, a brand new Battle Pass and much more. Chapter 6, Season 2 is a crime-themed season, replete with train heists and bank robberies. There’s a bit of a Grand Theft Auto vibe from all the promotional material. We also get some cool crossovers, the return of a fan-favorite character and what appears to be dual-wielding guns. There are also anthropomorphic pickles and hotdogs. Obviously.
Read on to learn everything you need to know about the new season, titled Lawless.
Chapter 6, Season 1 will go down around 11pm PT on Thursday, February 20th / 2am ET Friday, February 21st. Downtime typically lasts several hours so expect to see servers rumble back to life early Friday morning. At this point, you’ll be able to download the update and drop into the newly updated map.
Midas, who first made an appearance in Chapter 2, Season 2, is returning as part of the new Lawless Battle Pass. The new season seems to take a lot of cues from the first season he appeared in. While that was a spy-vs-spy season, this is more of a crime-themed affair. “Run amok in Crime City – gold vaults, Rocket Drills, and so much mayhem,” Fortnite posted to Twitter.
Along with an armored train and new banks to assault, the trailer shows players wielding an SMG and a shotgun at the same time. Dual-wielding should add an interesting wrinkle to the usual gameplay we’ve come to expect.
Forbes Daily: Join over 1 million Forbes Daily subscribers and get our best stories, exclusive reporting and essential analysis of the day’s news in your inbox every weekday.
Another skin coming to the new Lawless Battle Pass is Sub-Zero from Mortal Kombat. Expect to see Mortal Kombat-themed powers in the game as well as other characters from the classic fighting game. (I’ve wanted a Mortal Kombat x Call of Duty crossover forever because I think the Fatalities would make great Finishing Moves and because it’s a very bloody, gory game. Almost too violent to make sense for Fortnite!)
New POIs include Crime City, melting snow in some areas, the Turret Train and other unannounced locations. New weapons include an unannounced shotgun and the Mammoth Pistol, including a likely Mythic version for Midas. The Rocket Ram is also returning as a Rocket Drill.
Beyond this, there should be plenty more to discover once the season goes live this Friday, including the new Victory Umbrella and Battle Pass rewards. I’ll update this post as more information surfaces, so stay tuned!
One Community. Many Voices. Create a free account to share your thoughts.
What Time Does Chapter 6, Season 2 End And Season 1 Begin?
Watch The Season 2 Trailer
What’s New In Season 2?
Join The Conversation
Major Lawsuits Against Trump And Musk: Judge Declines To Hold Administration In Contempt For Suspending Foreign Aid Funds
‘NYT Mini’ Clues And Answers For Friday, February 21
White House And Treasury Department Agree To Block DOGE From Personal Taxpayer Data, Report Says—Here’s What To Know
Is Fortnite down? When are servers back up for the new Fortnite season? Game updates to Lawless
Fortnite’s new season will be Lawless.
The online game will be going dark tonight as the servers go down to update for the new season.
Here’s what you need to know about the downtime and Season 6 Chapter 2: Lawless.
The current season of Fortnite will end at 2 a.m. Friday, Feb. 21, NorthJersey.com, part of the USA TODAY network, reports. After that, Epic Games’ servers will go offline as Fortnite updates for Lawless.
Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle.
The new season should be available on Friday morning.
Past updates have typically lasted about four hours, so the game should be ready by 6 a.m. Friday. However, there have been delays before, like in March 2024 when Epic Games needed an additional eight hours to complete the job.
You can check the server status for Fortnite and other Epic Games products at status.epicgames.com. Fortnite also has a status account on X, @FortniteStatus, where you can get the latest on issues with the game.
Fortnite dropped its trailer for the new season on Wednesday, which features a pickle character rapping alongside a hot dog, a visit from Mortal Kombat’s Sub-Zero, and lots of characters battling over the spoils from a bank heist.
See for yourself.
According to TechRadar, the pickle is a playable character named Big Dill, who initially robs the bank before being robbed himself. After the loot is passed among several other characters, it ends up before a wolfman mob boss, possibly the game’s antagonist.
And that was indeed Sub-Zero. Epic Games has confirmed that the character will be featured in the new Battle Pass, TechRadar reports, making him the first Mortal Kombat character to be added to the game.
Are Fortnite servers down? When will Fortnite be back up?
How long is Fortnite downtime? When is the new Fortnite season available?
Check Epic Games server status to see if Fortnite is back up
Watch the Fortnite Lawless trailer
What’s coming in Season 6 Chapter 2: Lawless?
Fortnite’s new season has heists, pickles, and Cowboy Bebop
The battle royale game refreshes itself once again, this time with a GTA-style crime theme.
by Andrew Webster
Fortnite continues to be extremely weird in its new season. The battle royale game is returning to a heist theme for Chapter 6: Season 2, which has been dubbed “Lawless.” Players will be able to break into bank vaults, rob armored cars, and even perform robberies on the train that services the island. Also, there’s a giant pickle that raps.
After a Japanese-inspired season, Lawless looks like it’s taking cues from games like Grand Theft Auto. In addition to all of the robbery, there are also a handful of new locations, including an urban locale simply called Crime City. Other new features include: gold water that gives you powers when you swim in it; a fictional crypto currency that you can buy gear with but resets after each match; black markets for buying high-end weapons; a scanner for detecting where enemies are; and a mob boss who apparently likes to show up in the middle of a heist. Also new is the ability to have a specific song playing when you drop onto the map and win a match, as if you were a professional wrestler.
Here’s how the new season’s map plays out:
For those who pick up this season’s battle pass, there’s a crew of thematically appropriate criminals, as well as the aforementioned pickle — known as Big Dill — and, for some reason, Sub-Zero from Mortal Kombat. A series of Cowboy Bebop quests will also appear in-game starting March 1st, while outfits of the characters Spike Spiegel and Faye Valentine will appear in the item shop on February 28th.
Lawless runs from today until May 2nd. And while the battle royale updates are always Fortnite’s biggest draw, the game has also been expanding quite a bit in other ways over the last few months. That includes adding local multiplayer to its music mode, a new Counter-Strike-style shooter mode, and a Lego social game inspired by GTA roleplaying.
A weekly newsletter by David Pierce designed to tell you everything you need to download, watch, read, listen to, and explore that fits in The Verge’s universe.
© 2025 VOX MEDIA, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED