Fortnite developer Epic Games announced plans to take the game offline in a social media post late last night (July 14).

The game was taken offline at 9am BST UK time on July 15, with matchmaking disabled shortly beforehand.

These periods of server downtime typically only last for 2-3 hours, which means Fortnite should have been back online at midday.

Unfortunately, however, the maintenance has lasted for a lot longer, after Epic discovered an issue.

"Built for battle. Driven by justice," reads the original downtime announcement.

"Downtime for v36.20 begins at 4 AM ET with matchmaking ending shortly beforehand."