One of the world’s most popular video games is now on phones, as well as everywhere else you look. We assess how it performs on a small screen

Barely six months after its launch, Fortnite: Battle Royale has become one of the most played, watched and talked about video games in the world. Now, showing an admirably ruthless efficiency, developer Epic Games is launching a smartphone version. There really is no escape.

It is currently available by invitation via the dedicated website and is only for iPhones. The game employs pretty much the same user interface as the console versions, which means some of the text and icons on the menu screens are extremely small on a standard iPhone display. However, once you’re playing, the bright, colourful graphical style works well in this reduced format, allowing you to easily pick out scenic details, even from a distance.

It is tough to spot far-off players, though, so the mobile version adds a semicircular alert icon, which pops up when someone else is nearby, showing the direction they’re running or firing from. This is a useful addition, augmenting some of the sensory capabilities lost on the smaller display format.

From my experience, the game runs on a small screen with impressive fluidity. Moments of slow-down are reasonably frequent, but they are only a problem when several players converge on the same spot and try to build defensive barriers. In the more graphically demanding areas, especially towns, the detail takes a while to draw in, but it’s not a huge problem – and again, the cartoon visuals mask a lot of this.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Fortnite’s smartphone version uses virtual controls, with the aim, jump and crouch buttons all bunched up together. Photograph: Epic Games

You control the game with a standard smartphone virtual joypad: your left thumb controls an on-screen “joystick”, while your right thumb swipes to move the camera. There are also separate buttons for jumping, crouching and aiming down your weapon sight, and you can fire by tapping the screen or using the specific icon. This makes you subject to the vagaries and frustrations of touchscreen controls, including the lack of tactile feedback. The fact that you can often hit the wrong icons at inopportune moments – it’s quite easy, especially if you have big thumbs, to hit jump, aim or shoot when you’re trying to move left or right – can be a real pain, revealing your position to other players. You also get the age-old problem with virtual controls: your view of the action is obscured by your own hands.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Forget multitasking … Fortnite mobile. Photograph: Epic Games

This makes multitasking in the heat of battle laboriously fiddly. Attempting to seamlessly jump, aim, manage your weapons and build barriers is tricky as hell, so early encounters are spent frantically jabbing at the screen and learning how to engage without circle strafing. There’s no support for Bluetooth controllers (like the PlayStation 4’s), but that is planned for the near future (and can’t come soon enough).

On the positive side, selecting items in the construction and weapons menus with touch is quick and intuitive. You can also open and close doors by tapping on them, which is a neat little addition.

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Impressively, crossplatform play is supported for groups, which means you can get together a squad of PC, mobile and console players in the same match. However, to make this work, you all need to sign up for an Epic Games account – you do this automatically on PC or mobile, but on Xbox and PS4 you need to go through a quick sign-up process (find the details about it here). Then you add each other to your friends list, which will appear on the right side of the screen while you’re in the lobby. You’ll now be able to play against friends on PC, mobile and either Xbox or PS4, though you won’t be able to indulge in crossplatform action between these two consoles as Sony is refusing to play with Microsoft.

Something else the game is missing right now is voice chat. There are ways around this, but it’ll be nice when the option is built in.

Fortnite definitely functions on mobile, although players will have to refine their tactics and become deft with virtual controls that often work against them in the heat of battle. But it looks nice, it’s fun, it’s graphically stable and, if you’re signed into a regular Epic account, XP is shared across PC, mobile and console – so if you’re playing on the train or during your lunch break at work, you’re levelling up for when you get home. You see, it’s productive.

With close rival PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds also receiving a recent smartphone conversion, the current obsession with the emerging battle royale genre will soon be all-encompassing. Good luck ever getting any work done.