No Fortnite on Google Play?

Since its iOS debut, Fortnite has been long awaited by gamers on Android. Developer Epic Games has been promising an Android debut soon, porting all the features from the console and iOS versions. A few days ago, rumours suggested that Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy Note 9 could debut Fortnite for Android, with the free-to-play battle royale game being exclusive to the Samsung flagship for 30 days. Now, fresh rumours suggest that post the 30-day exclusivity, Fortnite could avoid the Google Play Store entirely and be available for sideloading from its website.

A latest report by XDA Developers suggests that Epic Games could be looking to save big on revenue by offering Fortnite as a free-to-download game from their website, avoiding the Play Store altogether. The tipster managed to go through the source code of the Fortnite’s Mobile page and discovered that the codes suggest a manual download process from their website only. The codes mention that users will need to grant access to installation from unknown sources in order to play Fortnite on their handsets. Usually, for all games that are available on the Play Store, developers often link their pages to the Google Play app download page.

This indicates that Epic Games could be allowing users to download the game exclusively from their website in order to prevent paying a fraction of their profits to Google for all the in-app purchases. Present Google Play policies require developers to pay 30 per cent of their sales earnings, which is a huge amount for certain developers to part with. Epic Games hasn’t confirmed anything in this regards officially and we will keep updating this space once we have some confirmed news from them.

However, what’s official is the number of devices that will be optimised for Fortnite on Android at launch. XDA Developers have managed to gather the list of 40 devices that will support Fortnite from the day Epic Games declares it available. If you have been waiting for a while for one of the world’s most hyped free-to-play battle royale games, then you can check whether your smartphone falls into the supported list:

• Google Pixel 2, 2 XL
• Huawei Mate 10/10 Lite/10 Pro, P10/P10 Plus/P10 Lite, P9/P9 Lite, P8 Lite (2017)
• LG G6, V30, V30+
• Motorola Moto E4 Plus, Moto G5, Moto G5 Plus, Moto G5s, Moto Z2 Play
• Nokia 6
• Razer Phone
• Samsung Galaxy A5 (2017), Galaxy A7 (2017), Galaxy J7 Prime (2017), Galaxy J7 Pro (2017), Galaxy Note 8, Galaxy On7 (2016), Galaxy S9, Galaxy S9+, Galaxy S7, Galaxy S7 Edge, Galaxy S8, Galaxy S8+
• Sony Xperia XA1, Xperia XA1 Ultra, Xperia XA1 Plus, Xperia XZ, Xperia XZs, Xperia XZ1

Are you surprised to not find your recently-launched flagship smartphone? Fret not, Epic Games is reported to be testing the game on as many smartphone it can and will update the list as soon as they done optimising it for your device.

(source)