Fortnite: the French name for « Heures musclées : Esprits dorés » has landed — see you tonight at 8 PM, and at 3 AM for the second window

Fortnite's message of the day has been displaying it in French since last night: « Heures musclées : Esprits dorés » opens tonight, Saturday, August 22, 2026, at 8 PM, Paris time. For two hours, gold variants of sprites spawn more often, secondary gold currency gains go up, and the Battle Bus hands out two extra items.

The French text stops there. The v42.00 patch notes, published in English, add a decisive line: the event runs a second time, « from 9-11 PM ET », which for us means from 3 AM to 5 AM on the night of Saturday into Sunday. We had already spotted this second window yesterday in the English notes; Epic, for its part, still hasn't written it in French. Anyone who sticks to the in-game message will believe everything happens in a single window. There are two.

Third thing to know, and it concerns the terminology: the French name has just been published. We wrote « Heures de puissance » on July 31 and August 7, then kept the English name yesterday for lack of an official label. The French client says « Heures musclées ». That is the name, and no other, under which you'll see the event on screen.

The two windows, in Paris time

Epic announces its schedules in US Eastern Time. On August 22, the gap with France is six hours: the East Coast is at UTC-4, Paris at UTC+2. Here's the result, window by window.

For the first window, no conversion is needed: Epic did the math itself in its French message, which states « le 22 août à 20h (CEST) ». For the second, you have to dig into the English notes, where the full sentence reads: « Jump in on Saturday, August 22 from 2-4 PM ET and again from 9-11 PM ET ». That « again » has no counterpart in the French text.

Note the date shift: the second window stays Saturday evening in the United States, but it moves to Sunday, August 23 in France. If you're setting an alarm, don't get the day wrong.

What these two hours change, effect by effect

The French message is short and needs to be read word for word: « Faites le plein d'or le 22 août à 20h (CEST) ! Les variantes des esprits dorés apparaissent plus souvent, et les taux de monnaie d'or secondaire sont boostés. Récupérez aussi un extracteur portable et un jeton de vie supplémentaire dans le bus pour démarrer en beauté. » Four effects, then.

• Gold variants of sprites drop more often. That's the whole point of the operation: the v42.00 notes open the paragraph with « Gold Sprite variants are being hacked in! ». The exact rate itself isn't published.
• « Secondary gold currency rates » go up. This French phrasing is vague; the English version of the same message is clear-cut: « Gold Bars are boosted ». These are the gold bars you pick up in a match, not a store currency.
• An extra Portable Extractor is given to you in the Battle Bus. The English notes describe it as an item « to help you collect » and say nothing more about this window.
• An extra life token, also in the Bus.

These last two items are delivered before landing. You don't have to pick up anything on the ground to benefit from them: they're already there when you jump.

The life token isn't the respawn you think it is

The life token — 1-Up Token in the English notes, « un jeton de vie supplémentaire » in Epic's French message — has a specific effect, listed among the v42.00 new features: it makes you respawn with your full inventory after an elimination. This isn't a simple revive: your weapons, ammo, and consumables come back with you.

Be careful not to confuse it with the Extra Life modifier on hacker consoles, which we covered in a separate article: that one triggers right at the moment of elimination, only once, and doesn't depend on the Bus. Two distinct mechanics, two distinct moments.

The practical outcome is the same in both windows: with a life token in your pocket, losing a fight early in the match no longer costs you your session. That's exactly what allows for an aggressive landing right where the sprites spawn, instead of playing the edges of the map to survive.

The golden pistol the French message doesn't mention

The v42.00 notes mention a fourth bonus, absent from the French message of the day: during these hours, the chance of finding Midas' Masterpiece is increased. This pistol does have an official French name, despite its English title in the notes: Epic's official French article states « Mettez la main sur le pistolet chef-d'œuvre de Midas pour éliminer instantanément d'un tir dans la tête », and the client's localization strings render Midas' Masterpiece as « Chef-d'œuvre de Midas ». That's the name it displays under in-game.

What the notes say about it: a gold, single-shot pistol, high damage, capable of eliminating an opponent with a single headshot, with limited ammo. The notes add an explicit warning: if you're the player who picks it up when it spawns, « use it wisely ». In other words, it doesn't reload indefinitely, and a wasted shot can't be replaced.

« Heures musclées »: the exact label, and the two to forget

The French name went live in the in-game news feed on August 21, 2026 at 10:59 PM UTC, i.e. 12:59 AM Paris time this Saturday, and it's still there this morning. We first spotted it via the public mirror of Epic's localization strings, a third-party source that copies the client's text. We then verified it on an Epic Games server: when queried in French, the game's content service also translates Power Hours as « Heures musclées ». The full label is « Heures musclées : Esprits dorés », matching the English title « Power Hours: Gold Sprites ».

This translation choice isn't new: Epic already used « Heure musclée » in 2025, and we published a guide about it on September 19 of that year. The term is therefore stable at the publisher, even though the English notes' section title, « Golden Hours and Weekly Events Start August 22 », uses a different one.

The same message also settles the French names of the two items handed out in the Bus, which we had left in English until now. Here's the full breakdown:

We're correcting our own copy here: « Heures de puissance », used on July 31 and August 7, was an in-house translation. It doesn't match anything the game actually displays.

Three decisions to make before 8 PM

Two hours go by fast, and three calls deserve to be settled now rather than at 8:05 PM.

1. Play outside Ranked during the window. The French message dedicated to sprites is explicit: they now spawn in Ranked, but « avec leurs capacités désactivées pour garantir une compétition équitable ». A gold variant picked up in Ranked does join your collection; it's of no use to you in the current match. If you're playing for the effect, switch queues.
2. Pick your window, just one. Both windows apply the same effects according to the notes: nothing indicates the second one is better. The 3 AM to 5 AM slot only matters if you're already up, or if you're playing in a more westerly time zone.
3. Don't spend down your spirit dust before then. v42.00 lowered the summoning cost of rare sprites and their variants: with the same reserve, you'll summon more tonight than before the season switch. The reduction isn't quantified by Epic, but it's stated in black and white.

A quality-of-life detail, added by the same update, will save you time tonight: the game now shows in a match whether a sprite you come across is already in your collection, and its name is displayed when you pass near it. You won't have to extract at random just to check anymore.

What comes right after: Sunday's roadmap

The section of the notes covering the event is titled « Golden Hours and Weekly Events Start August 22 »: this Saturday also kicks off the season's weekly events. Epic goes on to announce that it will publish a roadmap every Sunday on its social channels, through the end of the season.

The first one therefore lands tomorrow, Sunday, August 23, 2026, a few hours after the second window closes at 5 AM. That's where you'll need to look for the date of the next event, not in the v42.00 notes, which don't date anything beyond this weekend.

In order, for tonight: check your spirit dust reserve, get out of Ranked, log in at 8 PM. And if you miss the evening window, you've got a second chance at 3 AM — the one the French message won't tell you about.