Fortnite players on the PS4 will soon be getting a great new feature that will have a big impact on the game, but Xbox One fans will miss out.
Fortnite has surged in popularity ever since the free-to-play Battle Royale mode was launched last September on PS4, Xbox One, PCs and Macs.
Since then the player numbers have been skyrocketing, with Epic Games saying Fortnite could now be the biggest game in the western world.
In February, Fortnite surged past Battle Royale rival PUBG to hit a peak of 3.4million concurrent players, breaking PUBG’s record of 3.2m players.
And since the Fortnite Twitch Prime Pack launched at the end of February, streaming figures for Fortnite has also surged.
Twitch Metrics published this week revealed that – at the moment – Fortnite is the highest viewed game ever on Twitch.
And the popularity of Fortnite is set to shoot up even further thanks to the newly announced Fortnite mobile version.
Epic Games in a blog post revealed that Fortnite Battle Royale is coming to iOS and Android.
The new Fortnite mobile app will have the “same gameplay, same map, same content, same weekly updates” as the full-fat version.
Sign up for the iOS version will begin this coming Monday while Android support will become available in the next few months.
The launch will also see the start of Fortnite cross platform play – however, the Xbox One is absent from the devices supported.
Cross play and cross progression will, once all mobile versions are launched, be available between PS4, PC, Mac, iOS and Android.
Explaining how the cross play will work, the Fortnite team said: “In partnership with our friends at Sony, Fortnite Battle Royale will support Cross Play and Cross Progression between PlayStation 4, PC, Mac, iOS and eventually Android.
“This means players across devices can squad up with friends and play together.
“We believe this is the future of games. The same game on all platforms. Console quality graphics and action. Play when you want, where you want.”
Epic Games’ Nick Chester on Twitter went into further detail about how Fortnite’s cross play will work.
He posted: “If a mobile player wants to play with their friend on PS4 or PC, cool! If a PS4 player wants to play with a PC player, cool! They should be able to.”
One Fortnite fan asked him: “There are tiers, yes? Mobile->Console->PC i.e. you can only go up and not down in the cross-play tier list?”
And Chester replied: “Yeah, that’s correct. A PC player won’t end up playing in a PS4 or mobile game, for example. It’s opt in for players who want to squad up with friends.”
Xbox One fans took to Twitter after the cross platform news was revealed by Epic Games.
One tweeted: “Will Xbox ever get Fortnite cross play or cross progression??”
While another posted: “Fortnite not having cross platform progress between Xbox and PC is very frustrating. Major turnoff.”
One added: “Significant deal to have PS4 cross-play with all platforms other than Xbox. Fortnite pretty huge now.
“Time for PUBG to come to PS4 or they could miss out big time.”