Fortnite has long been easily playable on iOS, but Epic has confirmed it’ll finally be returning to Apple devices in the second half of 2025.
A few years ago, Apple removed Fornite from the App Store due to Epic letting users buy the battle royale’s in-game currency elsewhere, circumnavigating the iPhone maker’s 30% cut of all transactions. This then led to a big ole lawsuit between the pair, and currently the game is still not available on iOS. However, next year, that’ll all change, as the official Fortnite Twitter account shared that both the game and the Epic Games Store will be coming to iOS in the UK in the second half of 2025. How is this possible? Well, it’s all thanks to the UK’s Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers act.
This particular act, as described on the UK government’s own website, could “give consumers the room to freely choose the services they use, or stop companies from withholding information consumers need to make good decisions” as well as giving regulators “powers to intervene and direct a firm to change its behaviour to boost competition – whether that is to benefit people using smartphones or businesses dependent on cloud services.”
Similar to the EU’s Digital Markets Act, which in one part requires that tech companies like Apple have to let their mobile platforms host app stores run by other companies. As an example, Microsoft is planning to open its own mobile games store later this summer. This EU act is also allowing it to open the Epic Games Store and release Fortnite on iOS in Europe, though that’ll be happening as soon as this year, according to Epic.
As noted by Eurogamer, this might be Epic sounding the alarms slightly too early though, as the Competitions and Market Authority will still need to asses which of the “most powerful global technology companies will be subject to these new rules if, following an investigation, they are deemed to hold ‘strategic market status.'” These companies are also able to appeal if this is the case, so, maybe plan to stick to playing Fortnite on whichever platform you’re currently on.
Earlier this week, Fortnite Wrecked arrive, and for the first time it’s brought Fallout to the battle royale, more or less in time for Amazon’s live-action series.