Fortnite mobile on Android comes to Google Play 18 months later

(Image credit: Epic Games)

Fortnite mobile is now available on Android's Google Play store, a year and a half after it first became available on Android through alternative means.

You can head to Google Play and start the download right now. It's the same version of Fortnite that was playable by downloading an installer from Epic before, complete with built-in cross-play support for multiplayer with other platforms. You can still download the separate installer on Android if you prefer, though it's not clear if that will remain the case in the future.

"After 18 months of operating Fortnite on Android outside of the Google Play Store, we’ve come to a basic realization," Epic said in a statement given to The Verge. "Google puts software downloadable outside of Google Play at a disadvantage, through technical and business measures such as scary, repetitive security pop-ups for downloaded and updated software, restrictive manufacturer and carrier agreements and dealings, Google public relations characterizing third party software sources as malware, and new efforts such as Google Play Protect to outright block software obtained outside the Google Play store."

Epic said it hopes that Google will revise its policies to let developers "compete on a level playing field" in the future. All that business-to-business drama aside, the end result is that you should now have a much easier time installing and playing Fortnite mobile on Android.

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Connor Sheridan

I got a BA in journalism from Central Michigan University - though the best education I received there was from CM Life, its student-run newspaper. Long before that, I started pursuing my degree in video games by bugging my older brother to let me play Zelda on the Super Nintendo. I've previously been a news intern for GameSpot, a news writer for CVG, and was formerly a staff writer at GamesRadar.