If you haven’t heard of the game Fortnite, you’ve been living under a rock. Now, the game developer has announced that they’re bringing Fortnite Battle Royale to iOS and Android devices. For those of you who haven’t heard, the game is incredibly popular and is a free-to-play multiplayer game. The game is coming to both phones and tablets. Epic Games promises that “it’ll be the same multiplayer game you know from PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC, and Mac”. It will come with the same gameplay, content, maps, and weekly updates as the console and PC versions. Users will be able to sign up for an iOS beta starting on March 12th, with invites rolling out shortly afterward. Players who get an invitation will also get several invites to send to friends as well. Android support is planned in the next few months.
This is part of Epic Games’ continued efforts to make the game available across all platforms with the same “console quality graphics and action”. If you’re wondering, you’ll be able to sign up on the Fortnite website starting on March 12th. Following that, invite links will begin rolling out with more players being added on a regular basis over the next couple of months. Fornite has become an incredibly popular game on consoles and PCs alike, with the “Victory Royale” end screen becoming a social media staple among players.
But not everyone is happy about the game, or the fact that it’s making its way to iOS. In fact, the popular strategy survival game is having some unwelcome side effects on family life. The reason? Once kids start playing it, they don’t want to stop. Like any game with a fiercely competitive online mode, younger players can find that they get really upset when they lose. We’ve seen this with other games, but even more so in Fortnite because you only have one life and then you are out of the game.
Fortnite became much more popular with the Battle Royale mode, as it can be played for free and pits up to 100 players against each other. All the while, a mysterious cloud steadily reduces the size of the war zone – creating knife edge and climactic gunfights. That said, there might also be some benefits to the game. This is according to some psychologists. Even though it’s just a shooting game, it’s believed that players will develop strategic thinking, forward planning and creative approaches to combat. It does teach a deep amount of collaboration and working together as a team.
If you’re wanting to play Fortnite on your iOS device, you will need an iPhone 6S/SE or later. Or you can play it on your iPad Mini 4, iPad Air 2, iPad Pro and 2017 iPad. I think it’s great that they’re making the game available on more devices, but will this make it more addicting? Also, the game is free, which certainly makes it more intriguing and accessible to more players. Like with anything, we have to do things in moderation – and gameplay is no different. Head over to the Fortnite website today and get yourself on that list.