Fortnite: Battle Royale, the last-man standing shooter with animated, dancing John Wicks and pink bunny costumes, is available for download on our favourite portable console — the Nintendo Switch.
We’ve had some rumours about this, so the announcement didn’t come as a surprise, but only a day after the official announcement by Epic Games at the E3 conference, the game is available for free to owners of Nintendo’s Switch console. This after Epic decided to enter the competitive gaming world with style, having opted to push a whole lot of cash into their eSports entrance.
Playing on the Switch will not give you Nintendo-specific capabilities or content, and the Joy-Cons will function as conventional gamepad controllers. There won’t be any of the cool motion control capabilities we’ve seen with Doom and other shooters (yet).
It’s not all sweetness and awesome portable battle-royale action, though. An issue you might notice is that you can’t access your Epic account if it’s connected to a PlayStation 4.
If you have played Fortnite on PS4, it’s enough to get your account locked to that system. It goes the other way too — if you link your Epic account to the Switch, you’re locked out on the PS4. This is justifiably infuriating for people who have picked up the new Switch version (although it’s free to download), because you still can’t carry your PS4 around and work in a sneaky Fortnite session at work.
There is also no cross-play supported from PlayStation’s side. You can still join your PC and iOS friends, but Nintendo and Xbox mates will be left in the corner.
Back to the good news, everyone! If you own a Switch, you can download Fortnite now and team up with your iOS, Xbox and PC buddies. Now just the wait for Android… If you’re already on the bus, but having a hard time staying alive for more than a few minutes once you hit terra firma, check out our Fortnight survival guide.
