What You Need to Know About Playing Fortnite Without Xbox Live
As Fortnite Battle Royale continues to take over the world with its iconic locales and goofy characters, cosmetics, and emotes, just about everyone is trying to find a way that they can play the game for themselves. With Fortnite Battle Royale being an online-only multiplayer game, if you’re playing on PS4 or Xbox One, you’ll need a PlayStation Plus or Xbox Live Gold subscription to play. These subscriptions aren’t the cheapest, though, and so some may be wondering if there’s a way you can play Fortnite without having an Xbox Live gold subscription themselves.
Technically, there isn’t a way you can play Fortnite without any Xbox Live Gold subscription, but there is a way to gain access to a subscription without paying for it yourself. If you’ve got a friend or family member who is willing to give you their account information (email address and password) or just sign in on your Xbox One, you can share their Xbox Live Gold subscription with you if they set your Xbox One as their ‘home Xbox.’
To do this, press the Xbox button, then head to System, Settings, Personalization, and then My Home Xbox. Select the ‘Make this my home Xbox’ to confirm this.
Obviously, before you tell your friend or family member to do this, you should probably fill them in on what doing this on your Xbox allows you to do, and what other accounts on their Xbox One will no longer be able to do. Setting a console as your home Xbox allows you to share games, DLC, and your Xbox Live Gold subscription with anyone else who signs in on your console. As such, you’ll have access to all of their games they have purchased digitally, but no other accounts on their Xbox One will be able to.
You can change your home Xbox settings up to five times during any one-year period, so keep this in mind if you’re planning on switching it back and forth multiple times.
Outside of using this home Xbox method, there’s no way you can play Fortnite without an Xbox Live Gold subscription. For more on the game, be sure to check out our wiki.
