Update: Sign-ups are live.
This time last week, I had no idea that it would ever be possible to ever play Fortnite: Battle Royale on mobile, let alone that I might be doing it as soon as next week. But that's Fortnite, a game that retooled itself from a co-op RPG into a competitive shooter in what appeared to be a matter of months and then immediately started churning out new content even as it began to eclipse PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds to become one of the most popular games in the world. And now it seems that people are going to be playing this thing on iOS devices in what might be just a few days.
Starting tomorrow, March 12, you can sign up for the Fortnite: Battle Royale's pilot program on iOS so long as you have a device that's up to the minimum standard: read more about how to sign up here. Epic says only that invites will arrive "soon after" sign-ups go live on Monday -- that's not all that specific, but I think we can read a little bit into the general speed of development here and assume that people will be able to play the thing at least by the weekend, though that is a guess.
Fair warning: I expect a massive wave of interest in these invites. It won't just be from mobile players looking to get in on the craze: I would expect that a huge share of console or PC players with eligible devices signing up for pure curiosity's sake, and there are untold millions of those players at this point. If I had to guess, I'd say that invites will be awarded on a pure lottery system, but it's not impossible that Epic might factor in the order in which you sign up, so I'd recommend keeping an eye on Fortnite's Twitter for when sign-ups go live -- we'll keep you posted as well.
Fortnite is actually a relatively complicated game from a control perspective: its unique gameplay proposition hinges on a building system that skilled players have been able to use with blistering speed, and it's hard to imagine that touch controls will be able to replicate the capabilities of mouse and keyboard or even controllers. The shooting mechanics also call for a long-distance accuracy, though to be honest kids these days might be good enough with touch controls to make that work even better than controllers, at least.
We'll see how it works soon enough. If you don't get an invite right away, Epic will be sending out new rounds "over the coming months," and eventually Android will get its own pilot program as well. It sounds that while early access will begin sooner rather than later, a full-fledged commercial release is still a little ways out.
