Xbox Cloud Gaming smuggles Fortnite back onto iOS

By Luke Albigés,

Fortnite today has the honour of becoming the first non-Game Pass title playable via Xbox Cloud Gaming, creating a workaround for the battle royale game to be playable on iOS devices after it was pulled from the App Store in 2020.

The Xbox Cloud Gaming library continues to grow every month despite the service still being in beta, but it's typically just games featured in the Xbox Game Pass library that get the cloud treatment. Well, it looks like Microsoft is making an exception this time, offering a cheeky loophole to get Fortnite back on Apple devices after two years.

Play Fortnite on iPhone and iPad with Xbox Cloud Gaming

Interestingly, you don't even need an Xbox Game Pass membership to play Fortnite via Xbox Cloud Gaming — just head to xbox.com/play on your device, sign in with a Microsoft account, and you're good to go. Technically you could do this on PC as well, but sacrificing the mouse-and-keyboard advantage of the native PC client for latency and a controller probably won't make bagging a Victory Royale particularly easy.

According to Microsoft's Xbox Cloud Gaming boss, Catherine Gluckstein, this is just the start in terms of branching out with cloud support. She says that Microsoft "will look to bring more free-to-play games people love in the future," although doesn't give anything more away. Other F2P titles like Apex Legends and Destiny 2 continue to perform impressively on our Xbox Gameplay Chart, so would seem likely candidates... Roblox does well on the list too, although that does already have its own native mobile version. "At Xbox, we want to make gaming accessible to the three billion players around the world, and cloud has an important role in that mission," she continues. "Quite simply, we want you to have more choice in both the games you play and the way you choose to play them."

What other non-Game Pass titles would you like to see added to the Xbox Cloud Gaming lineup? Let us know!
Luke Albigés
Written by Luke Albigés
Luke runs the TA news team, contributing where he can primarily with reviews and other long-form features — crafts he has honed across two decades of print and online gaming media experience, having worked with the likes of gamesTM, Eurogamer, Play, Retro Gamer, Edge, and many more. He loves all things Monster Hunter, enjoys a good D&D session, and has played way too much Destiny.
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