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Fortnite will be on PS5 and Xbox Series X at launch

Next-gen players will be able to jump into battle royale

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The Orange Justice emote in Fortnite Image: Epic Games via Polygon
Austen Goslin (he/him) is an entertainment editor. He writes about the latest TV shows and movies, and particularly loves all things horror.

Epic Games revealed Unreal Engine 5 on Wednesday, the latest iteration of its popular game engine. Epic’s presentation was very next-generation-focused, so it’s no surprise that the company also announced that Fortnite will be a launch title for both the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X.

During the presentation, Epic showed off footage of the new Unreal Engine running on a PS5, but Fortnite won’t be running on Unreal Engine 5 when it launches on next-gen consoles. It will initially be the Unreal Engine 4 version that’s currently available everywhere else; Epic said that it will bring Fortnite to Unreal Engine 5 in mid-2021.

Epic didn’t share many other details about the game’s next-gen release, but said in a blog post that it intends on supporting cross-platform play and account progression. Players of every existing version of Fortnite are able to play with people on other platforms, and it seems the same will be true when the PS5 and Xbox Series X versions come out. Epic also plans to continue updating the game on current-gen platforms, so PlayStation 4 and Xbox One players shouldn’t worry if they don’t plan on upgrading their consoles right away.

Neither the PS5 nor the Xbox Series X has a concrete release date yet, but both are scheduled to come out this holiday season. While we don’t know exactly when they’ll be released, at least we know for sure that Fortnite will be there when they are.

Update: A previous version of this story speculated about cross-platform play. Epic has since confirmed that it plans to support cross-platform play and account progression between all platforms, including next-gen; we’ve edited the article to reflect that.


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