Four years after Fortnite was no longer available on the iPhone, the popular video game will be able to be downloaded again on Apple devices in 2024, although only in the European Union.
On the occasion of the new EU Digital Markets Law (DMA), which will allow app developers to sell iOS applications outside of the App Store, Epic Games has reported that it will open its Epic Games Store digital store on the Apple platform, and with it Fortnite will also return.
“At the end of this year Fortnite will arrive on iOS in the EU through the Epic Games Store”—reads a message published on the account of this video game on the social network EU that has made it possible.”
The announcement comes after the apple company has announced the changes that it will make in the territory of the EU due to the new law, a series of measures that will come into force next March and that those companies that want to comply with must comply. sell your apps outside of the App Store.
The CEO of Epic Games, Tim Sweeeny, has defined Apple’s measures to adapt to the new European regulation as “a new and tortuous example of malicious compliance.” In an extensive message on
In August 2020, Apple removed Fortnite from the App Store after Epic Games implemented an alternative payment system within the game itself. Through this system, players could make purchases at a lower price and without going through Apple’s payment platform, but instantly, the company led by Tim Cook withdrew the game, citing the fact that Epic Games had failed to comply with the rules of its digital store.
This situation led to a long legal dispute between both companies that ended at the end of 2021, when Judge Yvonne González Rogers, of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, ruled that Apple should allow iOS applications to direct users to payment options beyond those offered by the apple company, which applies commissions that reach 30 percent for each transaction.
Almost four years later, Fortnite will return to the iPhone in 2024, but knowing the relationship between both companies, it is quite likely that the dispute will not end just like that.