Here’s The Exact Time Fortnite’s Chapter 3 ‘Fracture’ Event Goes Live

Fortnite is about to end Chapter 3 about a year earlier than chapters normally end with a big finale event called Fracture. That will launch the beginning of Chapter 4, along with a whole new map and a bunch of other changes coming to the game, the most recent rumor I heard was…motorcycles.

So, what time does the Fortnite Chapter 3 Fracture event go live?

That would be today, Saturday December 3rd at 4 PM ET. Other times:

Chapter 4 should begin some time early the next morning (ET) after downtime, so far as we know.

Epic has told players that they should log in 30 minutes before the event start, but unlike past “one time only events,” you can still enter into it up to 40 minutes after it starts while it’s still in progress. The implication there is that it may be as much as 40 minutes long, but it’s not quite clear how this works, whether you’d be starting the event from the start, or joining in the middle of a 40 minute in-progress event. You can join in a squad of four with friends if you want.

As for what the event actually is, that remains under wraps, and Epic is notoriously harsh on any leakers talking about anything significant about their events before hand they may happen to find. The basics are that this is going to be dealing with the recent chrome plague on the island, feature chrome tornados to tear the place up, all at the seeming direction of seasonal villain The Herald.

But unlike other season-ending events, this one is likely to either destroy or reshape the map entirely so we have a brand new one, a signature of any new Chapter. Last time, the map flipped upside down and the new map was underneath it, but that’s clearly not going to happen again. Rather, Fortnite has talked about numerous “realities” in which there are countless other islands, even if the grand scope of Fortnite’s universal ambitions are always somewhat nebulous with its over-arching storylines.

This does seem to be an event they’re hyping up more than usual, and this has been a pretty solid renaissance period for the game with a fresh surge in interest after No Build Mode was introduced during this chapter. Chapter 4 will also be coming with a grand Creative Mode revamp which will allow a whole bunch of editing with Unreal Engine 5 and more creation tools than ever before. Though that’s been delayed until January 2023, according to Tim Sweeney, so it will not launch this weekend with the new chapter.

Teaser images and trailers have not shown us much, so it’s time to just show up at 4 PM ET and find out what’s happening. See you out there.

Follow me on Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. Subscribe to my free weekly content round-up newsletter, God Rolls.

Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.