Yes, you can play Fortnite on your MacBook Air but not natively. You must use GeForce Now, Boosteroid or Parallels to play it. In the tech world, natively means on the device itself, without emulation or virtualization.
My name is Ty, and I am an avid techy and gamer, here to share my expertise and knowledge surrounding this field. My knowledge will be of some assistance to you.
Fortnite is a gaming phenomenon that has taken the world by storm and stayed in the spotlight for over five years. Some would say it’s even more popular today than it was on launch. So it is only natural that you want to check to see if your MacBook Air could help you join the hype.
Let’s get into this.
Contents
Key Takeaways
- Fortnite is a worldwide gaming sensation that popularized Battle Royales
- MacBook Airs are not Gaming Machines
- Cloud Gaming could be an alternative allowing you to join everyone on the Battlebus.
- Parallels is a Mac application that hosts a virtual session of Windows 10/11, giving you access to all Windows 10 games!
Why MacBook Airs Don’t Natively Support Some Games
The most important thing to remember is that MacBook Airs were never meant to be gaming devices. They have never been marketed as gaming machines for a good reason.
You won’t be playing games like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare or Fortnite on a device like this any time soon. That is due to a mixture of hardware and software.
However, there are hundreds and thousands of games in the App Store that the MacBook Air can handle. But most are arcade-style or have simple graphics.
Still, most games are optimized for Windows 10 and Linux because those are meant for gaming. macOS is not optimized to be a gaming operating system like the others have, so game developers tend to steer clear of working with it.
Why is Fortnite Not on the App Store?
In some form or another, Fortnite is inescapable. From action figures and backpacks at Target to posters, etc., etc. But for the uninitiated, Fortnite is a free-to-play Multiplayer game on virtually every console someone could viably own.
Released in 2017, this Multiplayer game began to take the world by storm. While it was not the first in the genre of Battle Royale, it was undoubtedly one of the most popular and has managed to stand the test of time.
Unfortunately, due to a legal dispute, apple had to remove Fortnite from the Apple Store, making it ALMOST impossible to join your friends on the battlefield if you are on a MacBook Air.
Use Cloud Gaming to Play Fortnite on Your MacBook Air
Since you can’t play natively on the MacBook itself, one of the best alternatives is Cloud gaming.
Cloud gaming is relatively new, so the art of it has yet to be perfected. Once cloud gaming has been tuned and optimized to a truly perfect state, it will change the gaming landscape forever. This new way to play has allowed a much broader audience to experience games in a whole new way!
First, let’s get into how the cloud even works. Cloud gaming is much like a streaming service in a way. Like how we stream movies through Netflix, cloud gaming allows us to stream video games themselves.
The service provider hosts the game on powerful hardware; it is then streamed from their device, through the internet, and onto your device, letting you play the game off of their hardware instead of your own.
This is the absolute dream for someone with less-than-stellar gaming hardware, like a MacBook Air!
It isn’t perfect, unfortunately. Like with Netflix, you’ll need a solid internet connection for this to run smoothly. A very, very good internet connection. Unlike Netflix, which is simply streaming a video, Cloud gaming has to stream all your inputs on top of everything else.
With a lackluster internet connection, cloud gaming is almost unplayable. All you are left with is a hard-to-enjoy gaming experience. Sometimes the games will simply stop and boot you from your gaming session.
I’ll delve a bit into the two best options you have now, so you can join your friends and the world on the Fortnite craze.
GeForce Now
One of the newest Cloud Gaming Services available is GeForce Now. Once the application is installed, you will see every game available to you.
Find Fortnite, and link your Epic Games account to it. This will make it easier to load into the game on the next boot-up.
Once you click Play now, GeForce Now will get to work initializing your network, checking to see if it is strong enough to even stream the game, If it is strong enough, you will load in, and be ready to join millions of other players.
This is one of the simplest options, but the rest I will go into detail about, are all very entry-level friendly.
Boosteroid
Unlike GeForce Now, this service does not require installing an application. Boosteroid is a cloud gaming service option that works best within google chrome and opera and is simple and quick to get set up.
Follow this link to check it out for yourself. Once you have decided if this works for you or not, you can get started, and get into a game of Fortnite with ease.
Parallels Desktop
This desktop application allows you to run virtualized sessions of Windows 10, Linus, and even prior versions of macOS.
This also means that you have access to all of the available apps and games on those operating systems. Once you install Parallels and get it set up to run Windows 10, you can install the Epic Games app, create an account, and install Fortnite!
Parallels does offer a 14-day free trial, so you can test it out and see if it is something you’d like to continue to use. After that, you will have to purchase a yearly subscription.
The basic subscription will cost $74.99. To get a look at what all of the different versions have to offer you, see here.
Final Thoughts
While not natively playable on MacBook Air devices, there are plenty of alternatives. So we are still in luck. With just a bit of elbow grease, you can take advantage of any of the methods I showed you above to get into a match of Fortnite and scratch that Battle Royale itch.
