This Friday, March 10, the second season of Chapter 4 of the essential battle royale “Fortnite”: “Mega” premieres. A cyberpunk-themed update that gives pride of place to futuristic neon decorations, but on one condition: if you’re playing on PC, you’ll need to be on Windows 10 or 11 to enjoy Epic Games’ video games.
The last update of Fortnite it comes with a significant restriction for PC gamers. HE ” chapter 4: season 2 ” of real battle from Epic Games has just been released this Friday, March 10, 2023. A new version called ” Megawhich gives pride of place to the cyberpunk theme, but it will not be possible to play it if your computer is running Windows 7 or 8.1.
A decision that should prevent several thousand gamers from taking advantage of it… or force them to switch to Windows 10 or 11. Of the nearly 30 million people who play Windows every day Fortnite , around 14% do it on PC, according to a 2021 Statista study. And if we refer to the current popularity of the different versions of Windows, 12% of users are still on Windows 7 or 8.1, again according to Statista . Of course, not everyone plays. Fortnitedaily, but the popularity of the title suggests that the number of players affected is not negligible.
A waste of developer time
Ce choix de l’éditeur de jeux vidéo n’est pas une surprise: lors du lancement de la première season du chapitre 4 de Fortnite, début décembre, Epic Games avait déjà annoncé qu’il mettrait fin à la compatibilité du jeu avec ces deux exploitation system.
In an article on the official website of Fortnite the developers of real battleHe explained his decision thus:“The increasing risk of security vulnerabilities and the lack of modern features in older operating systems cost us considerable development time to find fixes, time that we don’t spend on the game itself. »
Among the modern features mentioned, we’re guessing that the addition of Unreal Engine 5’s next-gen graphics rendering technologies didn’t help convince Epic Games to continue development on Windows 7 and 8.1. Above all, this announcement echoes Microsoft’s end of support for Windows 8.1 as of January 10, 2023, three years after the end of Windows 7 updates.
What solutions for Fortnite players on Windows 7 and 8.1?
Of course, affected players can still look for the PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, and Android versions of Fortnite. But to play on the versions of Windows in question, you’ll need to follow the same methods as iPhone or iPad users: Epic Games recommends using online game streaming services, be it Nvidia GeForce Now or Xbox xCloud. A solution that still requires a very good internet connection.
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