Fortnite Coming to Android

Epic Games has announced that they are bringing their extremely popular battle royale game Fortnite to Android phones this summer, more details can be found in their developer blog post titled, “The State of Mobile”. A number of new features will be introduced into the mobile version, including a customizable HUD and a voice chat function for mobile devices.

Many game companies are now looking to mobile sources to increase their revenue streams. From Call of Duty to Resident Evil, gamers all around the world are showing increased enthusiasm for video games on their mobile devices.

Any online battle royale game needs to have a voice chat function to enhance the overall experience, the blog post reads, “We know that communication is key when you’re squadding up for that Victory Royale, so we’re working to bring voice chat to mobile.” For those of you who would rather not have the voice feature –on account of too much noise- Epic plans on introducing muting features to ensure that their voice chat feature is not abused by players.

 “We’re looking to make it very easy to mute yourself, other players, or close up all communications with a simple tap. There will be a button that lets you mute yourself, mute everyone in your part or go back to being to open-microphone.”

Epic will also be targeting gameplay features like auto-run, firing and making sure that their game doesn’t hog down the battery resources too much. A useful feature is the ability for players to access in-game statistics so they can monitor their performance metrics and easily compare them with others.

Given that Fortnite skyrocketed to the top of App Store’s free charts after being released on iOS since March, it can be safely assumed that Play Store will experience the same boost. Sensor Tower, a mobile analytics firm, estimated that the Epic Games made of $15 million through in-app purchases in the first three weeks of being on the App Store. Sensor Tower also reports that Fortnite makes over $1 million every day though mobile sales alone. A similar boost in revenue can be expected from the Android versions as well. Many players spend money on exclusive items such as John Wick’s skin and the Snorkel Ops outfit.

Although mobile phones have relatively less computing power than their console or PC counterparts, they have just about enough to deliver a smooth experience, good visuals and high frame rates.

Fortnite is immensely popular and made over $300 million in the month of April alone, substantially more than what Avengers: Infinity War made on its opening weekend. This is more than double the amount they generated in the month of February when they earned $126 million. It even broke the world record by having more than 3.4 million people play at once, a feat that was previously held by PUBG at 3.3 million.

Their worldwide success and critical acclaim comes at a cost though, since there is talk of PUBG taking Fortnite to court over allegations of copying their IP.