Fortnite's 9th Birthday Event: Every Quest, Free Reward and the Birthday Power Hour Explained

Fortnite Battle Royale turns nine years old today, September 26, and Epic Games is marking the occasion with a full 9th Birthday celebration that's been running in-game since September 21. There's a dedicated questline, three stacking cosmetic rewards, a hidden code for a free spray, a returning batch of unvaulted party items, and — specifically for today — a Birthday Power Hour with a brand-new Sprite variant. Here's everything that's confirmed, what it's worth doing before the event ends on October 1, and how it fits into the wider Chapter 7 Season 4: Override patch it launched inside.

1. When the 9th Birthday Event Runs

Epic added the Birthday content in the v42.20 update on September 17, and the celebration itself went live on Monday, September 21, 2026, rolling out region by region starting in the early hours of that morning. The event — quests, rewards and all — is scheduled to run through Thursday, October 1, which lines up with the next scheduled update, when the island is expected to flip into Fortnitemares 2026. That gives players a window of roughly ten days to finish the Birthday Quests and claim every reward before they disappear.

September 26 specifically is the actual anniversary date: the original Battle Royale mode went live to the public on September 26, 2017, which is why Epic buries its biggest one-day birthday extras — the Power Hour and a new Sprite — in the middle of the wider ten-day event rather than at the start.

2. Today's Birthday Power Hour and New Sprite

To mark the actual anniversary, Epic is running a limited-time Birthday Power Hour today, September 26, in two separate windows starting at 2 PM ET and 9 PM ET. During each window, every player drops onto the island already holding Fortnite Presents, the Exotic Balloon Popper Assault Rifle spawns at a boosted rate, and Chests get a better chance of producing 1-Up Tokens and Portable Extractors alongside the usual loot.

The headline addition is a new Birthday Sprite, also released today. Once equipped and leveled up, it gives Chests a chance to serve up slices of Birthday Cake when opened — and at maximum Sprite level, eliminations can drop cake too. Birthday Cake restores health and shield, similar to other party-themed consumables from past anniversary events. The Sprite reportedly comes in several collectible variants, including Gold, Cheatmaster, LootHacker and Bounty Hunter versions, for players who chase Sprite mastery.

3. How This Year Compares to Past Fortnite Birthdays

Epic has marked Battle Royale's anniversary with some version of this format every year since the mode launched in 2017, and the pattern is familiar to longtime players: a short stacking questline, a handful of free cosmetics, and a batch of temporarily unvaulted party items. Recent years followed the same template — the 6th Birthday in 2023 arrived through a mid-September hotfix, and the 7th Birthday in 2024 launched via a September update and ran through October 1, the same cutoff date Epic is using again this year. The 9th Birthday keeps that structure but leans harder on the new Sprite system introduced earlier this season, which is why this year's headline extra is a Sprite rather than a purely cosmetic unlock.

It's worth noting this is a separate celebration from Fortnite Festival's own anniversary, which the rhythm-game mode marked back in July with its own all-access weekend — the "9th Birthday" name refers specifically to Battle Royale, the mode that started it all in September 2017.

4. All 9 Birthday Quests

The questline is a single stacking set of nine objectives that can be completed in any order and in any match during the event window. Progress carries over between matches, so there's no need to finish them all in one sitting. The full list:

• Dance using an Emote during a match
• Eliminate opponents while aiming down sights (2)
• Throw Birthday Presents (3)
• Eat Birthday Cake slices at Named Locations (4)
• Deploy Balloons (5)
• Hit headshots (6)
• Search chests or containers (7)
• Visit different Named Locations in a single match (8)
• Wish the Battle Bus driver a happy birthday (9)

Birthday Cake slices — needed for the eating quest — spawn in stacks around decorated cakes placed at Named Locations across the map, so that objective and the "visit Named Locations" quest can often be chipped away at together.

5. Free Rewards and How to Unlock Them

Unlike a lot of Fortnite's seasonal content, every 9th Birthday reward is free — there's no Battle Pass or Crew requirement. Rewards stack as more quests are completed:

• 3 quests complete: Choco-9 Cake Back Bling — its in-game item description reads "You can really taste the 9."
• 6 quests complete: Cake Crusher Pickaxe
• 9 quests complete: FNCS Sentry Back Bling

Two more rewards sit outside the questline entirely. Entering the code 9YEARS into an in-game Lobby Hack Admin Panel unlocks a free 9th Birthday Spray. Separately, players who level the new Birthday Sprite up to Sprite Mastery 28 unlock a full 9th Birthday outfit — the most time-intensive of the five rewards, since it depends on repeatedly triggering the Sprite's chest and elimination effects rather than a one-off objective.

6. Unvaulted Items for the Celebration

As it does most years, Epic temporarily unvaulted a handful of party-themed items for the duration of the event, including Birthday Presents (thrown items tied to one of the quests), the Firework Flare Gun, and Balloons. None of these are permanent additions — expect them to leave the loot pool again once the event wraps on October 1, the same way past birthday unvaultings have worked. It's a small loot-pool shake-up on top of the season's regular rotation, so don't be surprised to find presents and balloons sitting alongside Override-era weapons in the same chest.

7. Where This Fits Into Chapter 7 Season 4: Override

The Birthday event didn't arrive on its own. It's bundled into the same v42.20 patch that opened Chapter 7 Season 4's Override content, alongside a Kingdom Hearts crossover bringing Sora's Keyblade into the loot pool and new match overrides layered on top of the season's core loop, which we cover in our Chapter 7 Season 4 Override breakdown. The same patch window also carried the ongoing PAC-MAN collab and its Mega Maze mode, so this is one of the busier stretches of the season for limited-time content. Once the Birthday event and its overlapping collabs wrap on October 1, the island is expected to move straight into Fortnitemares 2026, so there's no gap between the two celebrations.

8. Quick Tips to Finish Everything Before October 1

• Prioritize the Named Locations quest and the cake-eating quest together — decorated cakes sit at Named Locations, so a couple of matches spent rotating through named POIs can clear both.
• Save the headshot and ADS-elimination quests for modes with more predictable engagements, like Zero Build, if aim under pressure isn't your strength.
• Drop into today's Power Hour windows (2 PM ET and 9 PM ET) specifically to farm Birthday Sprite XP — the boosted item spawns make it easier to survive long enough to rack up chest openings and eliminations.
• Don't wait until October 1 to redeem the 9YEARS code — Lobby Hack codes in past events have occasionally been swapped or retired early.
• If the outfit is the goal, treat Sprite Mastery as a long-term grind across the full event window rather than something to rush in one day.

Official Resources

• Fortnite News — official update announcements
• Epic Games' official v42.20 Battle Royale update notes
• Fortnite official site

For everything else going on this season, visit our full Fortnite and game walkthrough archive.