How To Play Fortnite on Android

There is no single game more popular right now than Fortnite: Battle Royale, Epic Game’s entry in the popular battle royale genre. Though popularized by PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (or PUBG) in 2017, Fortnite‘s release in the fall of 2017 helped to supply a healthy amount of competition to the at-the-time premiere battle royale game. That began to change in 2018, however, thanks to a multitude of reasons. Fortnite‘s design aesthetic is, of course, much more original, fun, and welcoming than anything PUBG offers. The game is free-to-play, unlike PUBG, which runs players $29.99 on Steam and console, which helps to make the game easy for any curious gamer—or non-gamer—to try out. The game is fairly consistent with new updates and features, and unlike PUBG, doesn’t feature any major gameplay bugs.

This whole time, however, there’s been one major question surrounding the mobile future of Fortnite: where is the Android version? Android is the most popular operating system around the world, trouncing iOS’s market share, and in the United States, still holds a slight majority over iOS users (somewhere around 54 percent to iOS’s 44 percent). But a search for “Fortnite” on the Google Play Store only provides users with knock-offs and assistant apps, like guides or emoticons based off the game. Despite the game’s popularity on mobile platforms, it’s been nearly four full months since the launch of Fortnite on iOS and it seems like the Android launch is nowhere in site.

But is that true? Can you play Fortnite on Android, or is all hope lost? If you’re still secretly jealous of your iPhone-owning friends, looking at them with envy from the safety of your Samsung Galaxy S9 or your Google Pixel 2, don’t worry—we have all the information for you in this guide to Fortnite for Android.

Is Fortnite Now on Android?

Yes, it absolutely is. On August 9th, at the Samsung Unpacked event in New York City, Samsung announced a number of new gadgets, including the anticipated Galaxy Note 9, the new Galaxy Watch, and a Galaxy Smart Speaker powered by Bixby. Most notably for gamers, however, was the announcement that Fortnite would finally arrive on Android starting today, albeit with a small catch at the end. So while Fortnite is now on Android, there’s a chance you might not be able to play it until later this summer—or perhaps, even into the fall. Let’s take a look at why there’s a limitation on Fortnite, and the phones that can currently install the world’s most popular game.

How Do I Play Fortnite on Android?

For the launch of Fortnite on Android, Samsung has decided to partner with Epic Games in the launch of Fortnite, for a few specific reasons. First, it’s important to note that Fortnite will never arrive on the Google Play Store, the main app store on Android for almost every single Android user on the market. Epic Games will, instead, offer a special downloader through their website that will require disabling a specific limitation in Android that stops you from installing outside sources, known as APK files. This could potentially be very dangerous, largely because, with the exclusivity for Fortnite sticking to Samsung for the time being, it’s very possible that someone could create a malicious file for Fortnite and distribute it to unsuspecting gamers.

So, here’s what we’ll say for now: if you have one of the following Samsung devices, you can begin playing Fortnite as early as today:

• Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 edge
• Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+
• Samsung Galaxy S9 and S9+
• Samsung Galaxy Note 8
• Samsung Galaxy Note 9 (launching this month)
• Samsung Tab S3 and Tab S4

Anyone with one of these devices can grab the APK from the Galaxy App Store on your device, which allows you to download the Fortnite downloader and, in turn, the actual beta of the Android version of the game on your phone. Everyone else, unfortunately, will have to either wait for the wider rollout sometime in the coming weeks, or will have to modify the APK file—something we’ll have more information about further below in this guide.

What Devices Will Fortnite Run On?

When we originally published this article in July of 2018, we were concerned about the age of plenty of Android devices, and whether or not older processors had enough power to give the correct amount of juice to Fortnite. especially considering the performance on iOS devices often runs pretty low. Fortnite is a powerful game, and it was originally unclear about what devices would be able to run Fortnite at launch. Thankfully, with the launch of the currently Samsung-exclusive beta, we actually have an answer for you. In addition to the Samsung devices listed above, Samsung has confirmed the following devices on their website:

• Google Pixel and Pixel XL
• Google Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL
• Asus ROG Phone, Zenfone 4 Pro, 5Z, and V
• Essential Phone (PH-1)
• Huawei Honor 10, Honor Play, Mate 10 and Mate 10 Pro, Mate RS, Nova 3, P20 and P20 Pro, V10
• LG G5, G6, G7 ThinQ, V20, V30 and V30+
• Nokia 8
• OnePlus 5 and 5T, 6
• Razer Phone
• Xiaomi Blackshark, Mi 5, 5S, and 5S Plus; 6 and 6 Plus; Mi 8 and 8 Explorer; 8SE, Mi Mix, Mi Mix 2, Mi Mix 2S, Mi Note 2
• ZTE: Axon 7 and 7s, Axon M, Nubia Z17 and Z17s, Nubia Z11

If you aren’t seeing your device on this list above, it might still be able to run when the Fortnite beta is rolled out to a larger group of devices outside of Samsung. If your device has the following specs, you should be able to play the game:

• OS: 64 bit Android, 5.0 or higher
• RAM: 3GB or higher
• GPU: Adreno 530 or higher, Mali-G71 MP20, Mali-G72 MP12 or higher

The Adreno 530 is one of the most popular GPUs in Android, and it was included with the Snapdragon 820 processor. If your device has a Snapdragon 820 or higher (Snapdragon 821, 835, and 845), you should be able to run the app on your phone or tablet. However, Epic Games has confirmed a few exceptions on their website, devices that currently are unsupported by Epic Games but are in the process of being developed:

• HTC 10, U Ultra, U11 and U11+, U12+
• Moto Z and Z Droid, Moto Z2 Force
• Sony Xperia XZ and XZs, XZ1, XZ2

Though these devices are currently unsupported, Epic Games has claimed they’re working on preparing support for these devices in the short term, which means owners of these devices aren’t out of luck. However, it should be noted that we have no timeframe for when support for these devices roll out.

The major throughline in these devices should be obvious: these are all flagship devices, even if they date back to 2016 like the LG G5 or the Galaxy S7. If you have a midrange or low-end phone—think the Moto G-series or most of the Nokia devices on Amazon—you won’t ever be gaining support for Fortnite.

Installing Fortnite on a Samsung Device

If you happen to have one of those flagship Samsung devices, you’re in luck. Installing Fortnite is simple and easy, thanks to the exclusivity deal between the two companies. To install Fortnite, head to Epic’s website here to request an invite link or open the Galaxy App Store on your device to download the installer. You can also download the APK for the installer here, but you’ll need to have a Samsung device in order to properly use it at this time, as the installer checks to see if you’re using a supported Samsung device. If you are, you can install the game through those servers without much hold-up.