The Fortnite ‘Disabled: Sideways Anomaly’ message has appeared in Epic’s battle royale for most of Chapter 2 Season 8 this week and is confusing players a lot. Epic reportedly disabled the Fortnite Sideways Anomaly to aid with server performance, but most players have noticed that the giant anomaly still appears on the map and they can complete Sideways quests in it. So what does the error message refer to? Is it a bug?
What does the Fortnite ‘Disabled: Sideways Anomaly’ error mean?
The error message regarding the Sideways Anomaly in Fortnite is not about the giant Sideways Anomaly that appears randomly at named locations around the map. This one still works as normal, which is good – because players were getting annoyed that so many quests with the new daily, weekly, and character Punchcards required them to enter the Sideways to complete.
The majority of these quests can be completed in the regular large Anomaly, however Torin’s final mission ‘Complete a Sideways encounter’ can only be finished through the anomalies that are actually disabled right now. These little purple Sideways Anomalies are supposed to spawn around the map and allow players to enter to defeat Cube Monsters. However, as these are shut off right now players cannot complete Torin’s punchcard — and the fact that the error message says “Sideways Anomaly” singular is confusing players, as it should be ‘anomalies’ plural. Or, have a more specific name for the big anomaly.
Its only the sideways anomalies that are disabled (the purple rift ones that activate when you go near them). The one that spawns at a random poi every game is still in.
— FinchyBoy (@Tyler39756796) September 13, 2021
The first big update for Season 8 landed today and fixed some major issues, but sadly did not re-enable the Sideways Anomalies or fix the problems that are stopping Epic from putting them back in. Regardless, players seem to be mostly enjoying Chapter 2 Season 8 since it started this week, and there may even be a crossover with The Batman movie announced next month at the DC Fandome event.