If you’re frantically checking your email for a Fortnite early access invite after signing up Monday, give up now. Epic Games confirms that it won’t issue its first batch of download codes for iOS until later this week. Some of us could be waiting months for access!
When Epic finally allowed us to register our interest in the Fortnite Battle Royale iOS beta Monday, it made no mention of when the first invites would become available. Many assumed they would begin rolling out the same day, then spent the rest of the day glued to their inboxes.
That was a waste of time.
Fortnite invites are coming this week
Epic creative director Donald Mustard has since confirmed to Forbes that the studio will start issuing invites later this week. Mustard did not disclose how many would be available initially, but demand for early access has been staggering.
If you don’t get an invite from the initial wave, you could end up waiting a while for it to arrive. Epic says it will open up the beta to more players gradually over the coming months, so we should prepare ourselves for a lengthy wait.
But remember: When you and your friends do get an invite, it will come with additional codes that you can pass on to others. If you’re lucky, you could get an access code from someone else before your invite from Epic finally arrives.
We don’t know how Fortnight beta codes will be issued
Epic will need to ensure its systems can handle what will surely be millions of new Fortnite players. Making the beta available to everyone on the same day would be a disaster — especially if there are game-breaking bugs in the early versions that haven’t been ironed out yet.
We don’t know how Epic will decide who gets an invite first. It’s likely Fortnite streamers and YouTube creators will be at the top of its list. It could be first come, first served after that — or Epic could decide to make frequent Fortnite players a priority.
