PSA: You Don’t Need Xbox Game Pass to Play ‘Fortnite’ for Free on Quest

Xbox Cloud Gaming finally came to Quest earlier this week, letting Game Pass Ultimate members play the service’s full catalogue of flatscreen games on Quest for the first time. But did you know you don’t actually need any sort of subscription to play Fortnite for free on Quest?

It’s true, all you need to play Fortnite on Quest 2/3/Pro with Xbox Cloud Gaming is a free Microsoft account, that and be in a supported region.

Keep in mind: we’re talking about traditional flatscreen Xbox games played on a virtual screen.

There are a ton of supported regions too that support subscription-less Fortnite access, including:

Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Czechia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and United States

Granted, you will need a supported gamepad to play, as Touch motion controllers are unfortunately not supported. Supported controllers include all Xbox One S and Xbox One X controllers, PS4 and PS5 controllers, and some later-generation Xbox One controllers. You can find a list of officially supported controllers here, although many other non-listed Bluetooth controller also work, like an old Google Stadia controller.

So, what’s the big deal? While it’s true Epic Game has brought its free-to-play battle royale to almost every platform in existence, being able to play it for free on Quest is probably one of the best ways to acid test your WiFi setup to see whether playing other titles might be worth it. Microsoft says you’ll need a high-speed internet connection, with best performance at rates of 20 Mbps and 5Ghz WiFi or mobile data connection.

There’s more than one way to skin a cat too if you have wireless gaming in mind, albeit a more PC-focused. You can of course play any flatscreen PC game you own, Fortnite included, thanks to a number of solutions: you can use the new Steam Link app for Quest, the older Meta Air Link software, or Virtual Desktop, all three of which let you easily stream your desktop and SteamVR games to Quest for a wireless gaming experience. Keep in mind, all of these methods require at least a medium-tier gaming rig for best results.