Epic Games has made it official: Five Nights at Freddy’s is the headline collaboration for Fortnitemares 2026, and Epic says the Halloween event begins Thursday, October 1, 2026. The reveal, covered by Polygon and Eurogamer, drops Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria onto the Battle Royale island as a new point of interest.
The trailer shows the four core animatronics from Scott Cawthon’s horror series: Freddy, Chica, Bonnie, and Foxy. Eurogamer describes them as bosses players can fight, while Polygon points to a take-over-from-behind mechanic at the pizzeria, which fits the franchise’s jump-scare roots. For a mass US audience that grew up with FNAF on YouTube, this is one of the longest-requested horror crossovers Fortnite has left on the board.
Timing: Epic’s own line is simply that Fortnitemares begins October 1. Polygon reports that server downtime is expected to start around 4:00 a.m. ET that Thursday, with servers returning for the Halloween update after maintenance. That clock is the usual Fortnite update pattern rather than a time Epic has locked, so plan around it but do not treat it as guaranteed. The update lands on the Chapter 7 Season 4 calendar.
Item Shop: The animatronics are expected to become outfits, but Epic has not published a shop day, a bundle list, or V-Bucks prices. Treat any specific price you see before Epic’s shop post as unconfirmed.
Fortnite has leaned hard on licensed events this season. For the most recent example on RCG, see our coverage of the Fortnite Pac-Man collab and its Mecha Ghost bosses. FNAF is a different kind of collab: a horror property built around a single location, which is why a pizzeria POI rather than a simple skin drop is the headline.
What we are not saying: Polygon hopes fans might finally get an official FNAF map in Creative mode, but nothing in Epic’s announcement confirms one, so we are not reporting a Creative map. We are also not reporting outfit prices, a shop date, or a hard downtime clock from Epic. Fortnite is available on PC, PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch platforms, and mobile where supported.
