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Fortnitemares release time – Halloween event lands and Fortnite install size drops 60GB

A "larger than normal" patch on PC is going to shrink the game by 60GB alongside the update

The Fortnitemares release time is finally upon us. Epic has announced that Fortnite v14.40 is due to land on October 21, and while it’s not yet officially confirmed that Fortnitemares will kick off here, this is likely to be the last major update before Halloween. So expect Fortnite to once again join the ranks of Halloween games very soon, and there’s a massive extra benefit to this patch, too.

Downtime for Fortnite v14.40 kicks off on October 21 at 1:00 PDT / 4:00 EDT / 9:00 BST. During that time, PC players will need to download a “larger than normal” patch of 27GB. Once the update is downloaded and downtime comes to a close, you’ll be able to hop in to play with the new update.

Epic says that patch is so large this time to massively reduce Fortnite’s PC install size and future patch size. The update will “make optimizations on PC resulting in a massively reduced Fortnite file size (over 60 GB smaller), smaller downloads for future patches, and improved loading performance.”

Various leaks have indicated that Fortnitemares will land with tomorrow’s update, though Epic’s only official word was to say it was “just around the corner” last week. Datamines have uncovered leaked skins and what appears to be a broom, so you can get an pretty good idea of what’s coming.

So get your Fortnite V-Bucks ready for all the spooky new cosmetics, because it looks like Halloween season is starting very soon.