Fortnite Releases On PS5 At Launch, Here's The First Gameplay

Fortnite is coming to the PlayStation 5 at launch. Epic Games showed off new footage of the battle royale running on the next-generation console during the PS5 event on Wednesday. It looks like a big upgrade from the PS4 version of the game.

The footage featured shows the updated environments, water and fire effects, and combat gameplay all running on Unreal Engine 4. Fortnite will still be free-to-play when it launches on PS5 and all items and unlockables will be carried over from other versions of the game. Fortnite will also be available on the Xbox Series X at launch.

"Epic will release Fortnite, built with UE4, on next-gen consoles at launch and, in keeping with the team’s commitment to prove out industry-leading features through internal production, migrate the game to UE5 in mid-2021," the company said after announcing Unreal Engine 5 in May. Epic says it will be able to improve Fortnite's performance and visuals on the new hardware in 2021.

The next-generation consoles aren't the only platform with Fortnite getting big updates in the coming months. The PC version will get ray tracing and several other graphical upgrades on September 17. A Nvidia graphics card, such as the recently unveiled RTX 30 series and RTX 20 cards, will be necessary to run these new features.

It's no surprise that we'll be getting more in-game concerts, huge crossovers with brands like Marvel and Star Wars, and weekly challenges when Fortnite launches on the new consoles later this year.