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How to play with friends in Fortnite

How to play with friends in Fortnite
Trevor Hutchins

Trevor Hutchins

  • Updated:

Playing Fortnite with friends takes the experience from great to fantastic. There’s something special about finding, communicating, and connecting with old friends in a challenging and fun environment, or discovering new allies on Fortnite’s ever-changing battlefield.

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Still, with Epic games’s cross-platform play, figuring out how to connect with other people can become difficult. Especially if you’re new to the system.

We have a few suggestions on how to connect with teammates and work through bugs, to make your experience as smooth as possible.

Connecting with Friends

Although consoles like the Xbox One allow players to meet friends through their own system, the best way to find other Fortnite enthusiasts comes from Epic Games itself.

Open Fortnite on your device (if you’ve just begun playing, you’ll need to create an Epic games account to log in). At the top right of the screen, there should be a small “person” icon:

(The number indicates how many friends are online. In this case, one.)

Click on the icon, which will open a new panel with three sections:

(The “world” on the left indicates you are online, and shows which friends are as well. The “settings” tab on the right allows you to change attributes specifically focused on co-op play. We’ll reference settings again in the troubleshooting section.)

Click the middle “Add Friends” icon. The following screen will appear:

Here, you can connect to other Epic Games accounts in four different ways:

  1. A username search.  Know your friend’s username? Enter it in this bar, search, and you’ll be able to send them a request in no time.
  2. Account connections. Are your friends on Facebook or Steam? This option allows you to log in and connect through those sites.
  3. Recent players. Find those you’ve already fought alongside and invite them to be your friend. This becomes especially helpful after playing a squad match with folks you’d like to meet again.
  4. Requests received. When others send you a request, it’ll end up here if you miss the initial notification.

Once your Epic accounts are linked, bringing everyone together becomes as simple as selecting their username in the friends list and clicking either “invite to party” or “join party”.

Keep in mind, you may do this from ANY DEVICE, with one notable exception: PS4 players cannot join up with any other console. Will PC and Mobile work with PS4? Yes. Will Xbox or Nintendo Switch’s connect? No. Your friends may appear online, but joining their party will not work.

Finding New Teammates

None of your friends play Fortnite? Looking to meet interesting people? There’s a secret: the best way to meet new players is by playing!

Join any game that’s no Solos: Duos, Squads, 50v50, whatever. The game will ask you to choose “Fill” or “No Fill”. Choose “Fill”: this populates your team with three random players.

Once you’re in the game, you can decide whether or not to play with those teammates again. What you want in a teammate is up to you, but consider asking these questions: do they land with the team? Do they share loot, heals, and building material? Did Han Solo shoot first? Do they have a headset? Are they fun to talk to? Finally, most important of all, do they dance?

If you decide to play with any members of your team again, go back to the “Add Friend” tab, and select “Recent Players”. If you ever want to remove a friend, it’s as easy as selecting their profile and clicking “Remove Friend”.

Troubleshooting

Connection issues can happen for a number of reasons. We’ll discuss two broad areas: joining other players in a party and engaging in voice chat.

If you or someone else is having trouble joining the party:

  1. What devices are in use? Remember, PS4 players are not allowed to join squads with other consoles and vice versa.
  2. Is cross-device play allowed? Go into your “settings” tab and check that this is allowed on both devices.
  3. Are they actually online? If not, no worries, it’s an easy mistake to make.

If someone is having problems joining the voice chat:

  1. Are they already talking to someone else? Xbox and other consoles have party systems in place for users of the same type of device. Being connected in this fashion could be blocking the Epic Games chat.
  2. What chat settings are in effect? Go to the party settings and the audio settings to make sure everything is in order.
  3. Are other people muted? Muting in Fortnite can easily happen by accident: hitting the menu button and selecting a player’s banner will mute them. Select their banner once more to unmute.

Have fun joining the community, we hope these suggestions improve your experience!

Trevor Hutchins

Trevor Hutchins

Trevor Hutchins writes screenplays, novels, and articles from his home in La Mirada, California. He self-published hist first novel, 'Wynden's Legacy,' on Amazon in May of 2017 and hasn't stopped writing since.

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