It wasn’t AWS: Widespread gaming outage traced to Epic Online Services (EOS) authentication failure

Update 25/12/25 – 11:50 am (IST): The widespread service disruption has been resolved. While initial indicators and the sheer volume of affected third-party games pointed toward an AWS infrastructure failure, it has been confirmed that the culprit was actually Epic Online Services (EOS).

According to the official Epic Games Status page, the “login issues” impacting Fortnite, Rocket League, Fall Guys, and the broader EOS network were marked as resolved at 05:24 UTC.

As noted by @PascalAmpertail on X, the confusion likely stemmed from the massive reach of EOS, which provides authentication services for nearly 7,000 games on Steam alone. This explains why titles not developed by Epic, such as VRChat and Elden Ring, experienced simultaneous login failures. All game services should now be operating as normal.

Update 25/12/25 – 09:56 am (IST): Epic Games CEO, Tim Sweeney, took to X to confirm ongoing issues with Fortnite’s servers. However, there’s no ETA for a fix, and Amazon has yet to acknowledge any widespread outage.

Original article published on December 25, 2025, follows:

Amazon Web Services is having a really bad day, and it’s taking a massive chunk of the gaming world down with it. Players trying to load up Fortnite, Rocket League, or ARC Raiders are stuck staring at error screens instead of actually playing anything.

Downdetector is absolutely flooded with reports right now. The list of affected services reads like a who’s who of online gaming: Steam, Xbox Live, PlayStation Network, Epic Games Store, Dead by Daylight, Among Us, Apex Legends, Rust, Elden Ring, and VRChat. Pretty much if it runs on AWS infrastructure, it’s probably struggling or completely offline.

This marks the third major AWS crash this year, which is getting ridiculous at this point. The timing really sucks for people who carved out time during the holiday break to game with friends and family.

One frustrated player summed it up perfectly, pointing out that sure, playing Rocket League might not be the most traditional way to spend time together, but it’s how a lot of people actually connect these days.

AWS hosts the infrastructure for huge chunks of the internet, so when it fails, everything from Embark Studios games to EA services to Amazon’s own platforms goes with it.

The AWS status page currently indicates that there are no issues with the service; however, real-world experiences are telling a different story.

We’ll keep an eye out for any further details and update the article accordingly.

Note: The headline of this article has been updated to reflect that the outage originated from an authentication failure within Epic Online Services (EOS), rather than Amazon Web Services (AWS) as originally suspected due to the widespread nature of the downtime.

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