Fortnite is arguably one of the most popular games in the world at the time of writing this article. Published by Epic Games, it defined a new genre of Battle Royale games: a mix of traditional deathmatch multiplayer modes and building.
One of the things that make Fortnite so popular is its visual fidelity and artistic style full of bright colors and cartoonish models. The tradeoff for those visuals: they take up a lot of space – ranging from 3GB to 26GB depending on the platform you use.
I’m Aaron. I love playing video games and have been doing so for close to three decades. In my youth, the closest thing to a Battle Royale game was Blood or Unreal Tournament deathmatch, a far cry from what Fortnite is today.
Let’s take a look at Fortnite’s file sizes on different consoles and even dig into why it’s so large.
Table of Contents
Key Takeaways
- Fortnite takes up different amounts of space depending on the platform.
- On select platforms, this is increased with a newly released update!
- Fortnite used to be a lot larger and a lot of work was likely done to bring down its storage size.
- The size difference is likely attributable to graphics and audio files.
Fortnite’s Size on Different Platforms
As of mid-2022, Fortnite is available on a few different platforms with the following file sizes:
- PC: 26 GB
- Xbox One: 19 GB
- Xbox Series X/S: 22.5 GB
- PlayStation 4: 18 GB
- PlayStation5: 18 GB
- Nintendo Switch: 18 GB
- Android: 3 GB
- iOS: 3 GB
In December 2022, Epic released an update for Fortnite, Chapter 4 Season 1, for the following platforms with the following sizes:
- PC: 16.5 GB
- Xbox Series X/S: 17.4 GB
- PlayStation 5: 11.8 GB
That will increase the respective installation file sizes to:
- PC: 42.5 GB
- Xbox Series X/S: 39.9 GB
- PlayStation 5: 29.8 GB
Why is Fortnite so Big?
Fortnite is as large as it is because graphics and sound files are large. Every model is drawn in the highest detail and songs are stored in high quality. All of that is stored locally so that they appear seamlessly as you play.
Fortnite used to be significantly larger, taking up more than 60 GB on PC in 2021 and over 100 GB in 2020. Epic Games was able to reduce that size by compressing files and optimizing their storage.
Why are Fortnite Versions Different Sizes?
Fortnite takes up different amounts of storage space on different platforms because of the different needs of those devices. PC, Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5 can display in 4K. PCs can display different graphical settings, based on hardware. Smartphones, on the other hand, only display in 2K.
Higher potential screen resolution and greater variety in visual and audio fidelity options equate to more locally stored graphics files which equate to higher file size. Every PlayStation 5 and every Xbox Series X/S have the same hardware and performance specifications.
Conversely, PC hardware specifications vary widely. Those who spend top dollar on a system want to extract every bit of performance they can from it. In that case, visual fidelity is at a premium.
Conclusion
How much space Fortnite takes up depends on what platform you use. It also takes up significantly less space than it used to! Hopefully, this helps you plan some of your technical needs as you dive into playing Fortnite.
Do you play Fortnite? Please share some of your best experiences in the comments below!