One of the biggest games of the year is in its final homestretch before it’s finally made available on Android. However, the long-awaited release of Fortnite is going to be far from normal: you won’t find it on Google Play. Yes, you read that correctly. This decision made by Epic Games is causing quite the controversy in the industry.
For a few weeks now, we’ve been witness to a whole slew of gossip, hearsay, and trash-talk in which Fortnite has been the keyword. Now, we’re not fans of chasing rumors, and that’s why we haven’t bothered to hop on the clickbait train, grasping at straws to find something worth writing about. But now we finally know some real information about the possible release of Fortnite for Android. The date? It’ll most likely be the same date the Samsug Galaxy Note 9 is released, but don’t quote us on that.
We’ve heard of a thousand different dates for the release of Fortnite on Android, but this latest date may be a sort of bittersweet announcement for users who don’t have any intention of purchasing a Samsung Galaxy Note 9: the word on the street is that this release will temporarily only be available to owners of this device. Some of these rumors go so far as to claim that Fortnight Mobile will be exclusively available to the Samsung Galaxy family for four entire months. The truth is, we’ll all have to wait until August 9th, when the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 is set to be released, in order to discover the truth, once and for all.
But even if the temporary exclusivity of Fortnite is bad news for the rest of Android users, what’s more relevant is that the game won’t pass through Google Play. This information leaked by XDA is, surprisingly, true. Epic itself has decided to turn its back on Google, refusing to pay 30% of their profits to the company from Mountain View, as the CEO of Epic, Tim Sweeney declared in The Verge. Another reason mentioned for keeping Fortnite out of the Google Play store is “to have a direct relationship with our customers” without “middlemen” getting in the way.
This future release is creating some uncertainty, leading to plenty of alarmist articles on the subject. That’s why we’d like to clear up a few questions about the safety of APK files and the use of different sources other than Google Play to install Android apps.
It’s safe to download APKs from reliable sources
It’s kind of strange for us to have to respond to doubts like this, considering we’ve been the alternative to Google Play for a long time now. But here we go: downloading APKs from alternative sources outside the Google market is safe. You just need to have common sense and choose trustworthy APK distribution platforms. The same thing goes for downloading Windows files. It would be a mistake to think that anything that’s not directly from Google Play is untrustworthy. In fact we’ve seen a lot of cases where downloads from Google Play have ended up being apps that infect devices with malware. That’s why we just can’t understand why there are so many opinions against Fortnite for Android not going through Google Play.
The fact of the matter is that it’s completely safe to download APKs from trustworthy sources like APKMirror, APKPure, and of course, Uptodown. All the files you download from Uptodown are screened previously by the service Virustotal, where they’re analyzed by more than 50 antiviruses. That’s why you can rest assured that downloading APKs from our website is totally safe. And we’re sure that Epic is going to take things just as seriously as we do.
Android is not Google Play
As strange as it may seem, Android is not an operating system that obligates its users to use Google Play no matter what. Those of us in western countries may be used to our Android devices using the Google suite, but in Asia, that’s not the case. That’s why alternative marketplaces exist, like us: at Uptodown we want all Android users to be able to enjoy a free ecosystem that adapts to their needs, regardless of where they live or what type of device they have.
It would be naive of us to doubt the importance of Google Play, given that it’s a fundamental platform for the development and exposure of the Android ecosystem. But the same thing happens with other successful platforms like Steam for the PC world. Even if they’re incredibly important services, this doesn’t mean they’re the only places to go to download apps. There’s a whole world of possibilities outside of them just as the release of Fortnite is going to prove, and what our site has been demonstrating for a long time. Android was created with the idea of being an open platform, even though it appears that many people don’t understand that.
What devices are compatible with Fortnite?
We’d like to finish off with a list of devices that will supposedly be compatible with Fortnite for Android. We knew that Fortnite was going to require powerful devices, but it’s odd that we don’t see popular brands on the list like Xiaomi. According to XDA-Developers, the minimum specifications on this list include a Qualcomm Snapdragon 430, MediaTek MT6737, Exynos 7870, or HiSilicon Kirin 655 CPU, Adreno 505 or Mali-T720 for the GPU, and 3GB of RAM. So we’re hoping that many of us can play Fortnite if we meet these specifications, even if our devices aren’t on the following list.
- Google Pixel 2
- Google Pixel 2 XL
- Huawei Mate 10
- Huawei Mate 10 Lite
- Huawei Mate 10 Pro
- Huawei P10
- Huawei P10 Plus
- Huawei P10 Lite
- Huawei P9
- Huawei P9 Lite
- Huawei P8 Lite (2017)
- LG G6
- LG V30
- LG V30+
- Motorola Moto E4 Plus
- Motorola Moto G5
- Motorola Moto G5 Plus
- Motorola Moto G5s
- Motorola Moto Z2 Play
- Nokia 6
- Razer Phone
- Samsung Galaxy A5 (2017)
- Samsung Galaxy A7 (2017)
- Samsung Galaxy J7 Prime (2017)
- Samsung Galaxy J7 Pro (2017)
- Samsung Galaxy Note 8
- Samsung Galaxy On7 (2016)
- Samsung Galaxy S9
- Samsung Galaxy S9+
- Samsung Galaxy S7
- Samsung Galaxy S7 edge
- Samsung Galaxy S8
- Samsung Galaxy S8+
- Sony Xperia XA1
- Sony Xperia XA1 Ultra
- Sony Xperia XA1 Plus
- Sony Xperia XZ
- Sony Xperia XZs
- Sony Xperia XZ1
