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Fortnite is still down due to huge AWS outage, as Roblox, Wordle and Epic Games Store recover

AWS is down and affecting gamers

AWS re:Invent 2022 logo sign
(Image: © Future / Mike Moore)

An enormous Amazon Web Services (AWS) outage is having a huge impact across the internet, and gaming has not escaped the damage.

Games of all types, from Fortnite to Wordle to Roblox have been affected by the AWS outage and appear down for huge amounts of people today. Problems started at about 7.30am BST (that's 2.30am ET) when gamign services started having huge spikes on the outage-detecting website Downdetector.

The root of the problems lie Amazon Web Services, but no specific cause is known yet: the Amazon Web Services dashboard just shows an "operational issue" in North Virginia. The AWS dashboard says "engineers were immediately engaged and are actively working on both mitigating the issue".

Anyway, the effect of the outage has been massive and is ongoiung in the gaming world with storefronts, online games, and more being interrupted. Im here to bring you the latest as we try and understand what happenbed and hope that services come back online soon.

Latest news

  • A massive AWS outage has afffected swathes of the internet, including games and gaming services
  • Fortnite, Wordle, Roblox, and storefronts like the Epic Games Store are down
  • Problems began at around 2.30am ET / 7.30am BST
  • AWS has said it's now seeing "significant signs of recovery"
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It's a bit slow for us, but Fortnite is back...

My colleague Rhys has just tried Fortnite again, and we can confirm that the game is back online!

It's definitely a bit slow, but it's definitely here and you can get going on games and matchmaking. Huzzah!

It appears as though Fortnite may be back...

OK, it looks as though Fortnite may be on the return!

The official Fortnite Status account on X / Twitter, has stated that players should be able to log in and matchmake with issue after the service provider outage has been "resolved".

The full statement is above but things could be on the up now...

AWS update

Okay, we've got another update from the horse's mouth.

A new post on the AWS dashboard from 4.08am PDT / 7.08am ET / 12.08pm BST says: "We are continuing to work towards full recovery for EC2 launch errors, which may manifest as an Insufficient Capacity Error.

"Additionally, we continue to work toward mitigation for elevated polling delays for Lambda".

It's all a bit technical, but a big takeaway here is that EC2 is short for Elastic Compute Cloud, which provides virtual servers in the cloud for running apps and hosting data. This likely explains why so many apps, like Snapchat and others, are having ongoing problems.

As a result, we might see the disturbance last a little while longer.

Fortnite is still very much down

We're still checking regular and Fortnite is still throwing up "Servers not responding" errors on the login screen.

The Epic Games Storefront online is back up for me however, so hopefully that's a good sign for Fortnite!

Elsewhere it looks like Reddit is having real trouble...

Adjacent to all the gaming chaos, which looks to be recovering, thankfully, it does look like Reddit is having an outage for the ages too right now.

You can follow that outage and get all the latest information here: Massive AWS outage takes down Reddit, Snapchat, Alexa, Ring and much of the internet – all the latest updates live

That last post about Fortnite is still backed up by the latest statement from the official Fortnite Status X / Twitter page, by the way. See that below:

Fortnite remains down though...

Fortnite error screen

(Image credit: Future/Epic Games)

It looks as though the huge battle royale game that is Fortnite is still down, however.

The above screenshot was from a few minutes ago, and taken by a colleague of mine showing that it is still impossible to sign in for some folks.

We might be past the worst of it, folks

I think we may well be coming out the otherside of this massive AWS outage that's affected loads of gaming services, everyone.

Downdetector graphs across nearly all major gaming storefronts, platforms, and games are showing downward trends and we here at TechRadar are accessing a number of them fine ourselves now.

Fingers crossed that the worst of it is over...

Roblox looks to have recovered

While the official Roblox X / Twitter account didn't post any updates about the state of Roblox today, it looks like users have reported it recovering.

It's also got a huge downward trend on Downdetector which means things are looking good for the immensely popular game platform.

Same goes for Lost Ark...

Lost Ark twitter account update

(Image credit: Amazon)

Unsurprisingly, the same goes for Amazon's other big game, Lost Ark, with the official X / Twitter account offering an almost identical statement acknowledging the problems.

If you play Amazon games, you may be hit hard...

Throne and Liberty twitter account update

(Image credit: Amazon)

Perhaps somewhat predictably, if you're someone who plays Amazon games it looks like you're being hit hard right now.

The above image is from the Throne and Liberty X / Twitter account, and remains the latest update on the game which appears to acknowledge widespread problems for players trying to login and play...

Phew! Wordle is back…

A woman sitting in a living room stares at a phone in confusion

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

Wordle was badly hit by the AWS outage earlier, but appears to be back online now.

Though the page itself – hosted on the New York Times' gaming site – loaded, it wouldn't let users log in, meaning they wouldn't be able to extend their all-important streaks.

The site now seems to be working normally, so you can go ahead and get your daily fix. (And if you need help, make sure you check out our Wordle today page for hints and discussion of the game.)

Thanks for the above update to our Global Editor-in-Chief, and Wordle warlock, Marc McLaren!

Cannot go fast right now in Sonic...

A screenshot of the Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds log in error

(Image credit: Sega)

Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds has been affected by the AWS outage too with my colleague Rhys sharing this screenshot showing that the connection to the server is just failing.

An update from AWS

We have an update from AWS!

Reporting at 2.27aam PT (that's 10.27am BST), AWS said:

"We are seeing significant signs of recovery. Most requests should now be succeeding. We continue to work through a backlog of queued requests. We will continue to provide additional information."

Fingers crossed that means we're now coming oput the end of this...

PS Network seems fine...

PlayStation Network status screen

(Image credit: Sony/PlayStation)

In slightly better news, the PlayStation Network seems to be fine - at least for me and many others, despite there being some reports of outages.

From my testing however, the store, games, and PS direct, and all my account gumpf is fine - thankfully.

Epic Games Store error screen

(Image credit: Future/Epic Games Store)

Fortnite being down is partnered by Epic's own storefront failing to load or let me log in online.

The above error screen is what I get and have had all morning...

Fortnite massively affected

Fortnite login error screen

(Image credit: Future/Epic Games Store)

One of the very biggest games in the world has been affected by the AWS outage: Fortnite is currently down for many.

My colleague Rhys just sent me the above screenshot showing that he just flat-out cannot sign in to the game.

The error reads: "Unable to sign in to your account for online services. Please try again later."

Gaming services hit by massive AWS outage

A huge Amazon Web Services (AWS) problem started earlier this morning at about 7.30am BST (2.30am ET) and has seen a whole host of gaming services and games hit by interruptions and straight-up failures.

This will be huge today with millions of gamers trying to play online or affect storefronts on the daily. Right now, we can see that the likes of Fortnite, Roblox, Wordle, and the Epic Game Store - and many, many more - have been affected.

Let's do the rounds and see what the state of play is and if there's any fix on the horizon.