How to sit out in Fortnite

You can excuse yourself from playing Fortnite while queued in a squad of other players by sitting out. Rather than leaving the party outright and needing to manually rejoin, sitting out will keep you in your squad’s party while your teammates continue to join games and play. This way, they can keep playing without waiting for you to come back. Here’s how to sit out in Fortnite.

How to toggle sitting out

The mechanic for sitting out can be found under the Social panel of the main menu. This section can be opened by hitting Escape, Options, or +, depending on your platform. Under the “Participation” section, clicking on “Playing” once will change the setting to “Sitting Out.”

Sitting out will prevent you from tagging along in their game, restricting you to the lobby screen while the rest go and play. While you sit out, your teammates will be queued with a new fourth player as long as they have Random Fill enabled while queuing. Alternatively, they can set the lobby to “Squads No Fill” and try to go on without you.

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Ending the sit-out is as easy as clicking “Sitting Out” again to re-enable “Playing.” However, you won’t be able to join your squad if they are playing a game that is already in progress. In this case, you will have to wait until they finish their current game before you can queue for a new one. Looking to play Fortnite alone in its entirety? Try setting up a few single player bot lobbies.