After game developer Epic Games announced that Fortnite will be coming to iPhone and iPad later this year, the company has followed this up with plans to bring the game to multiple third-party stores for EU users, including AltStore.
In a short blog post on July 25, Epic Games announced more details. “Fortnite will be returning to iOS in the European Union soon, and the Epic Games Store will be coming to Android worldwide and iOS in the European Union bringing all developers great terms: a store fee of 12% for payments we process, and 0% on third party payments.” In a surprising twist, Epic also announced that Fortnite will be available on AltStore, another third-party app store. “Our mobile games will come to AltStore on iOS in the EU, and we expect to announce support for at least two other third-party stores soon.”
AltStore, created by developer Riley Testut of Delta emulator fame, is a third-party store that launched in April for EU users. On Mastodon, Testut confirmed the news, saying that there’ll be more to share soon. iMore has since reached out to him for additional comment.
Fortnite was removed from the App Store in August 2020 after Epic Games added a payment method that circumvented Apple’s own. This was announced as part of the 'Fortnite Mega Drop', which was a 20% reduction on all of its purchases across all platforms that Fortnite was available on, which also introduced a new Epic direct payment feature for iOS. Shortly after, Apple removed Fortnite from the App Store in response to this violation of its payment method policies.
With Apple approving Epic’s Games Store for iOS earlier this month, EU users may soon be able to finally play Fortnite again on the best iPhones and iPads.
A refreshingly selfless act
Since Apple announced plans for third-party stores for EU users in January, many wondered what Epic Games would do. This announcement followed months of advocating for it from Epic’s CEO, Tim Sweeney, who had been pushing for changes like these from Apple on X with numerous tweets.
Although Apple approved Epic’s Games Store for iOS, the company didn’t specify whether Fortnite would be available through its own third-party store or others. Now we know.
It’s surprising that Epic is offering Fortnite to other stores like AltStore, because it doesn’t need to. Epic Games is a huge company, which was established in 1991 and is responsible for creating the Unreal Engine. This set of tools has powered countless games since the mid-90s, such as Unreal Tournament, Gears of War, Final Fantasy VII Remake, and many more.
Epic could have simply made Fortnite available on its own Games Store for iOS and left it at that. Instead, third-party stores like AltStore will be able to host Fortnite with terms that developers have been hoping to see from Apple for years. This move only showcases great confidence in third-party stores and could inspire other developers to bring their games to Epic and AltStore in the coming months and years.
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