'Fortnite: Battle Royale' Android Release Date: Epic Announces A Target

Credit: Epic Games

Fortnite: Battle Royale on an iPhone.

Fortnite: Battle Royale is currently one of, if not the, biggest game in the world, and it's done so with an impressive multi-platform approach that includes iOS, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC. It's not hard to notice that there's something missing from that list, however, and it's a big one. Fortnite has yet to land on the Android operating system, leaving users of anything but Apple devices left with PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds for their battle royale needs. So when is that release date finally coming?

Today, Epic released an update on the state of Fortnite on mobile that covered ground from the past and present to the future. It talked a little bit about the customizable UI, which you can try out in the game now, as well as promised to work on reducing the install size and introduce stat tracking.

For many players, however, the most important information concerns the eventual Android release date. Previously all Epic had given us was that it would arrive "in the coming months" following the iOS release, but today Epic reaffirmed a commitment to bringing Fortnite to Android and offered a little more specificity:

"We are targeting this summer for the release. We know many of you are excited for this release, and we promise that when we have more information to share, you’ll hear it from us first."

Note that a target is just that -- a target, not a promise. So this makes it much more likely that the game will come out int the summer months, but leaves the window open to delays. There are plenty of issues when it comes to implementing a game like Fortnite on Android, chief among them the wide-ranging and fragmented ecosystem that contains many more devices than the relatively constrained world of iOS. Cheating is also a problem, and it will be much easier for players to use a mouse and keyboard through all sorts of methods, gaining a huge advantage over players using a touchscreen.

Epic recently announced a partnership with Tencent to bring Fortnite: Battle Royale to China, and I have to imagine that the Android release is going hand in hand with that project. Android is a massive platform in China, and the Android version will be absolutely essential if Epic wants to make as big a splash there as it has in most of the rest of the world.

Hopefully, we'll hear more soon.

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