The developer of the wildly popular battle royale game Fortnite launched their own battle against Apple and Google this week.

In a well-orchestrated series of moves, Epic intentionally broke the rules of the App Store and Google Play, which resulted in Fortnite being kicked out of both stores… and in response Epic file lawsuits against Apple and Google in an effort to force the companies to change the rules.

The legal battle could have serious implications for the relationship between app stores and developers. But for now there’s one set of people caught in the crossfire — gamers.

There’s currently no official way to download, install, and play Fortnite on an iPhone. But if you have an Android device, you can still do it… just not through the Play Store.

Here are two ways to do it:

  1. If you have a Samsung phone, search for Fortnite in the Samsung app store (or just click on this link to Fortnite in the Galaxy Store).
  2. If you have any other Samsung device you can use sideload the Epic Games App.

That second method involves jumping through some hoops:

  1. Visit fortnite.com/android from your phone.
  2. Tap the Get it on the Epic Games App option.
  3. Your phone will download an APK installer.
  4. You can tap the notification that lets you know EpicGamesApp.apk has been downloaded to start the installer, or find the app in your downloads using a file manager app.
  5. Tap the APK file to start the installation.
  6. If you’ve previously installed an app downloaded from the browser, it should ask if you want to install (click the install button). If not, you may have to allow installation of apps from unknown sources for your web browser.
  7. Once the Epic Games app is installed, open the app and tap Fortnite.
  8. On the following screen, tap Install.

During the install process, you’ll probably see a pop-up message letting you know that Epic Games does not have permission to install apps. If that happens:

  1. Tap Settings
  2. On the following screen, slide the toggle to Allow from this source
  3. Tap Install on the following screen.

It should take a moment or two for the app to install… but you’re still not quite ready to play the game yet, since there’s another 3.6 GB of data to download. The first time you open the Fortnite app, you’ll have to log into your Epic account or create a new account, and then you’ll be greeted with another download button.

Epic advises that you’ll need to keep the app open while that data downloads. This may take a while depending on the speed of your internet connection. When the installation is complete, you should be able to start playing Fortnite on your phone.

Overall installing Fortnite without going through an app store is a bit of a hassle. But at least it’s possible… if you have an Android device.

Note that you may want to return to your phone’s settings to disable installation of apps from unknown sources from the browser if you don’t want to run the risk of accidentally installing malware downloaded from the web in the future.

It’s always a little riskier to download and install Android apps and games from sources other than the Play Store, since they aren’t subject to Google Play’s security scans. But it’s not like malware has never ended up on the Play Store, and downloading the game straight from Epic’s servers should be relatively safe… although there’s always the chance that Epic could be hacked or that you might accidentally download a fake version of the Epic Games app from a third-party source.

Support Liliputing

Liliputing's primary sources of revenue are advertising and affiliate links (if you click the "Shop" button at the top of the page and buy something on Amazon, for example, we'll get a small commission).

But there are several ways you can support the site directly even if you're using an ad blocker* and hate online shopping.

Contribute to our Patreon campaign

or...

Contribute via PayPal

* If you are using an ad blocker like uBlock Origin and seeing a pop-up message at the bottom of the screen, we have a guide that may help you disable it.

Subscribe to Liliputing via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 9,543 other subscribers

4 replies on “How to install Fortnite on Android (now that it’s gone from the Play Store)”

  1. Well, if you have Huawei’s AppGallery there is no such problem (of monopolies with big eyes)!

  2. If you’re considering doing all this, maybe you should take this as an opportunity to re think what you could be doing instead.

  3. They couldn’t do anything about the first few hoops, but I’m surprised they made the last bit that annoying instead of just installing Fortnite. :O They’re probably hoping to use it for more games later… but everyone is downloading it for one reason only.

    I’d really rather not install their security store at all, given their past history with it on android… https://www.cnet.com/news/just-as-critics-feared-fortnite-for-android-came-with-an-epic-security-risk/

    It’s too bad it’s not available on Amazon’s store or that you can’t sideload Samsung’s Galaxy Store on other phones.

    1. Ya because having to pay Amazon, or empowering Amazon is a step toward empowering Amazon and their monopoly capitalist destruction of earth, animal and human.

Comments are closed.