Fortnite Returns To Apple App Store In US After 5 Years Of Ban: Know Details
Epic Games has won the legal battle against Apple. The game developer's popular multiplayer game Fortnite is available on the Apple App Store.
Published : May 22, 2025 at 8:26 PM IST
Hyderabad: Popular multiplayer shooter game Fortnite is once again available on the Apple App Store in the US. The Epic Games’ third-person shooter (TPS) video game was banned for nearly five years on Apple devices. A legal battle was locked in between Apple and Tencent-backed game studio, as the tech giant was alleged of charging a commission of up to 30 per cent on in-app payments.
The game was removed from the App Store in 2020. The return of Fortnite to Apple’s iOS systems in the US is followed by a ruling by a federal judge who said Apple disobeyed a US court order, which required the company to allow greater competition for app downloads and payment methods in the App Store. The federal judge’s ruling also mentioned that the tech company had failed to act by the judge’s prior injunction order issued last month. The order mentioned that Apple must allow Fortnite developers to collect payments outside the App Store and not charge fees. Moreover, earlier this week, US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in a filing said that Apple is required to approve the game developer’s submission or provide a legal point to not accept it. Things turned out to be in Epic Games’ favour. On this occasion, Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic Games, re-shared a post published by Fortnite on their social media platform, X, which stated, “We back fam.”
we back fam https://t.co/X14bCXoylB
— Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) May 20, 2025
About Fortnite
Fortnite is a battle royale third-person shooter format video game, which was launched in 2017. The game became an instant hit as it attracted millions of players around the world. At the time, when the game was banned on the App Store, Epic Games had 116 million users.
Gil Luria, an analyst at D.A. Davidson, stated that, “For Epic Games this was a hard fought win that carried a very steep price and may be too late to boost its Fortnite game that is now past its prime.”
She further mentioned that this loss is “another crack in the armor” of Apple, which highlighted the funnelling of payments done by the company to levy developers for every transaction the app users make.
