For the first time, I played Fortnite on a Pixel and it didn’t suck

That’s right! Though playing Fortnite on any Pixel phone in the past has been pretty much garbage, the latest, feature-packed December Pixel Feature Drop included a quiet-yet-beneficial update to the Tensor GPU driver. Seeing it in action on Twitter late last week was encouraging, but getting the update over the weekend and actually playing a match in Fortnite on the Pixel 8 Pro was game-changing!

While I don’t play tons of Fortnite, I aspire to play it more than I do and to get comfortable with it on my phone like I am with games like PUBG and Call of Duty: Mobile. While I would consider myself far better than average on those games, I feel like I’m quite novice at Fortnite and I’d like to change that. Having access to it in my pocket on an ongoing basis is key to that improvement, and now having the Pixel 8 Pro as my main phone doesn’t make this impossible.

It may sound silly, but the reason I tend to drop back to my trusty Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra comes down to the processor inside it and the knowledge that any game I want to play won’t be hindered by it. That’s an important aspirational aspect of any phone I choose to carry, and it hasn’t been true of Pixel phones since Tensor became part of the equation.

But with the latest update and the new GPU driver for Pixel phones with Tensor inside, I can confidently enjoy a bit of Fortnite on the go now and I’m really loving it. I found the sweet spot to be with the FPS set to 60, the graphic quality presets set to ‘Epic’, the texture quality set to high, and the 3D resolution at 70%. This gives a smooth, good-looking experience with no lag, stutter or jank, and that’s just not something I’ve ever experienced with Fortnite on Pixel.

The only issue I’ve encountered thus far is a bit of sound stutter from time to time, but it hasn’t really affected the game play in any real way. I’ve come close to winning a couple matches, too, so I’ll at least be ready soon when my kids need someone to fill out their squad and I don’t want to embarrass myself in the process. We’ll be unpacking and testing more of the new Pixel features over the coming days, so stay tuned!