Rocket Racing still ranked — but closing

Rocket Racing is still live inside Fortnite’s ranked system on April 12, even as Epic’s support pages say the mode will be removed in October 2026. (fortnite.com) (epicgames.com) Fortnite’s official ranked leaderboard still lists “Rocket Racing” alongside Battle Royale, Zero Build, and Reload, and Epic’s Rocket Racing island page still tells players to “Climb the ranks” in Ranked mode. (fortnite.com 1) (fortnite.com 2) Epic’s help article says Rocket Racing will be removed from Fortnite in October 2026, while Ballistic and Festival Battle Stage go offline earlier on April 16, 2026 with update 40.20. The same article says racing templates will be removed for developers, while racing tools will be added to Unreal Editor for Fortnite. (epicgames.com) That leaves Rocket Racing in a transition period: still playable, still ranked, and still promoted in official Fortnite surfaces, but already scheduled for retirement. Epic’s Fortnite news hub also still carries a Rocket Racing tag page with past updates, including the last major Rocket Racing patch post on October 12, 2024. (fortnite.com 1) (fortnite.com 2) Rocket Racing launched in December 2023 as one of three new Fortnite experiences unveiled by Epic, alongside Lego Fortnite and Fortnite Festival. Epic described it at launch as a “supersonic arcade racer” built by the developers of Rocket League. (epicgames.com) (store.epicgames.com) Epic has not posted a matching shutdown notice on the main Fortnite news page as of April 12, but the removal plan has been echoed by multiple gaming outlets citing Epic’s confirmation. IGN Latin America reported on March 24 that Rocket Racing is set to close in October 2026, and Game Informer reported the same date. (latam.ign.com) (gameinformer.com) Third-party trackers show the mode still has an active competitive layer. Fortnite Tracker’s Rocket Racing ranked page says it represents 574,182 ranked players, and Fortnite.GG still publishes a live Rocket Racing leaderboard. (fortnitetracker.com) (fortnite.gg) Epic’s current storefront and mode pages also still market Rocket Racing in the present tense, telling players to “play today” and launch directly into Rocket Racing’s lobby. That keeps the mixed message intact: the mode is not dead yet, but Epic has already put an end date on it. (store.epicgames.com) (fortnite.com)