What is Fortnite Battle Royale? How does it work and what devices can you play it on?

pocket-lint.com:

(Pocket-lint) — Unless you've been hiding under a rock for the last few years, you've at least heard of Fortnite — it's basically the gaming sensation of recent times (you might be cute, Animal Crossing, but you ain't got 350 million players).

Fortnite is a behemoth, after exploding onto the scene a couple of years ago cresting the wave of battle royale games to huge success, and is now available on a wide range of platforms. 

Even if you've heard of and about it, though, you might not be aware of what Fortnite is though, how it works, how to play or why everyone cares so much. We're here to help with a breakdown about what the game is about and everything else you need to know. 

The original version of Fortnite was intended by developers Epic Games to be a zombie survival game. An open-ended experience pitching co-operative players against waves of zombies while giving those players the ability to gather resources and build bases to defend against the oncoming hordes.

Coming around the time that PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds was starting to make waves, the development team decided to build and release a new free-to-play mode for Fortnite with a similar Battle Royale style — that turned out to be a stroke of genius.

This style of game is based on the Japanese thriller «Battle Royale», originally released in 2001. The premise of the gameplay is simple enough — 100 players are dropped from an aeroplane (or, in Fortnite's case, a floating battle bus) onto a large island or area where they then need to fight it out against one another until there's a final survivor or surviving team left. 

To add to the tension, a randomly placed shrinking circle of doom forces players into closer and closer proximity as the game progresses.