'Fortnite' Android Beta: Epic Explains Why It's Running Poorly

Epic Games’ announcement of the start of the Fortnite: Battle Royale Android beta test last week was big news for players. Unfortunately, some who tried to play the game have had issues, and the developer gave an explanation of what is behind the problem.

Epic tweeted Monday of the source behind the underwhelming graphics and laggy play on the Fortnite: Battle Royale Android beta. Its reasoning is Android users’ devices have too little memory when playing the game thus the issues with the game’s performance. Epic offered a suggestion on how to deal with the problem, but also said it will work on a solution.

“We have seen reports that some players on 4GB Android devices are encountering an issue causing poor performance,” the developer said in a tweet. “This is due to multiple background applications running—leaving the device without enough memory for Fortnite. We are investigating and working on a fix!”

According to the company’s FAQ, the minimum hardware requirements to play Fortnite: Battle Royale on Android are 3GB of RAM or more and a GPU of an Adreno 530, Mali-G71, Malif-G72 MP12 or higher. Some users on the game’s subreddit who say they have phones with specs higher than the minimum continue to have problems trying to play it.

As expected with a beta test, there will be rough patches. When Epic will be able to address these problems is unclear since unlike iPhones, Android devices have a wide range of processors, GPUs, and other hardware that can affect the performance of the game.

The initial announcement for the Fortnite: Battle Royale Android beta test was that only Samsung Galaxy devices will have access right away. On Monday, Epic sent out the first wave of non-Sasmung device invites for those who signed up for the wait list.

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