Massive AWS outage takes games offline — Fortnite, Roblox, PlayStation and Epic Games affected

A significant problem with Amazon Web Services (AWS) on the morning of Monday, October 20, 2025, caused major internet disruptions. The issue, centered in the US-East-1 region, quickly spread, impacting services worldwide – including banking, government websites, mobile networks, and apps like Snapchat.

As a gamer, I’ve been really frustrated lately! So many of the online games I love have been having issues – I keep running into problems logging in, getting disconnected mid-game, or just not being able to find matches. I’ve put together a quick rundown of what’s been going on with different games.

Affected games and platforms

The games and platforms currently affected include:

  • Fortnite – Reported login and connectivity issues
  • Palworld – Reports of failure to connect
  • Wordle
  • Rocket League
  • Clash Royale
  • Clash of Clans
  • Pokémon GO
  • Lost Ark
  • Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds
  • Epic Games Store
  • PlayStation Network

As of today, October 20, 2025, I’m happy to report that the Palworld multiplayer connection issues have been fully resolved. We experienced a global network outage earlier today, but everything is back online and players should now be able to enjoy the game’s multiplayer features as usual. Thanks for your patience and continued support!

Good news – Palworld says the problems are now fixed! However, the service was down for more than two hours.

Fortnite players are currently having trouble logging in due to a widespread internet outage. Our team is looking into the issue and will share updates as soon as we have them. (October 20, 2025)

Many online services are experiencing issues because they use Amazon Web Services. While some developers have confirmed these problems, others are coming from reports by users. The extent of the disruptions varies from game to game, and some are already starting to get back online. Good news for Xbox players: Xbox services aren’t affected because they use Microsoft’s Azure cloud instead of AWS.

Why online games rely heavily on AWS

A large number of online multiplayer games use Amazon Web Services (AWS) to handle important functions. When AWS experiences outages, those games can lose key features like logins, the ability to find matches, saved progress, and in-game purchases. This means even games you’ve downloaded and installed can become unplayable if AWS goes down.

We’ve seen outages like this happen before with major cloud providers like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft. It’s a good reminder that modern games heavily rely on constant internet connections. As gaming shifts more towards digital downloads and cloud-based services, it understandably raises questions about how dependable these systems are. When a provider experiences issues, millions of players are immediately affected.

Amazon provides recovery update but issues continue

Amazon has acknowledged problems with its services, reporting higher error rates and slower performance. They’ve pinpointed a possible reason for the disruption and are actively working to resolve it, but some services have been unavailable for several hours and haven’t been completely fixed yet.

Things are getting better, but the system is still recovering. Amazon is currently catching up on a large number of requests, which is leading to slower speeds and delays for apps and games that connect online.

A few titles are becoming available again, but we don’t have a firm date for when everything will be fully restored. You can check the Amazon Service Health Dashboard for the latest updates on the issue.

A reminder that modern gaming is fragile

These kinds of disruptions show us that online gaming is surprisingly vulnerable. Many games today need an internet connection to function, even single-player titles. If the servers that support them go down, players can lose access to everything from starting the game to their saved progress.

Popular online games now often use services like Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure to handle their operations. While this makes it simpler to manage growing player bases, it also creates a risk: if one of these services goes down, it can disrupt gameplay for millions of players globally.

This is happening as fewer people are buying physical copies of games, and more games need an internet connection to even start. While games that are constantly updated online are the most impacted when servers go down, even games you play by yourself can be affected. For example, Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds prevented players from accessing its single-player mode because of a server problem. Wordle also experienced issues, which makes sense since it relies on downloading new words from the internet.

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2025-10-20 15:40