In Fortnite, the new mode “Playground” with respawn was only briefly online on Wednesday. It was actually supposed to return on Friday. But that won’t happen: When will the Playground come back?
When can we access the Playground in Fortnite? According to the latest information from Epic, the Playground will return, but there won’t be anything new this weekend. Players are expected to be able to access the “Playground” again next week. The Playground will remain closed this weekend.
Is there a specific date? No, there isn’t. It is only mentioned as “next week” – that is, the week of July 2nd to July 8th. However, more information should be available on Monday.
Update: Apparently, the developers are getting closer to a solution. At least, according to a Twitter message, things seem to be looking good. However, there is still a lot to test.
Playing on the Playground
This is the Playground: The Playground is supposed to be a mode where players can mess around in teams or solo and try everything out. A match lasts for one hour. If you die, you simply respawn. Fortnite is otherwise a fast and ruthless game. In the Playground, people should have the opportunity to test the game mechanics: They can work on building or practice their automation.
What is the problem? There are apparently matchmaking issues. The mode was newly introduced on Wednesday but was disabled shortly after. Since then, Epic Games has been working to reopen the Playground, but it seems they are not succeeding. Epic wants to work hard this weekend to get the mode ready. In the meantime, there have been new dates provided for when the mode should work again, but all were not met.
Responsible for long server downtime even before release
The mode had problems even before release: It could be that the difficulties with Playground are related to the failure of a planned database switch. In early June, Epic experienced repeated server outages as they wanted to switch important systems. This led to patches arriving over three consecutive days with sometimes longer downtimes. The database upgrade was supposed to help Fortnite cope with the booming player numbers and manage experimental game modes.
The database is probably causing problems: However, the database upgrade was not successful, and Epic had to revert the Fortnite database to the old system. Epic wanted to conduct this database upgrade to allow a mode like “Playground” in Fortnite. Ultimately, they decided to postpone the database upgrade and continue with the old “temporary” solution – this could now cause problems. We should learn more on Monday when Epic provides insight into the technical difficulties behind Fortnite.
This weekend, there is a lot happening in Fortnite:
