Agent Jones, Peely, and your whole different favourite Fortnite characters are headed again to iOS after an absence of almost three-and-a-half years. 

“Bear in mind Fortnite on iOS?” the official Fortnite account on X posted. “How bout we convey that again.”

However, do not get too excited in case you’re a Fortnite participant within the U.S. or UK, for instance. Fortnite for iOS is just headed again to your iPhone in case you reside within the European Union. 

Fortnite is just returning for EU customers

Why? Effectively, Apple’s hand is being pressured by a brand new EU legislation known as the Digital Markets Act (DMA). In reality, Fortnite explicitly gave a shout out to the DMA in its announcement and thanked it for making Fortnite’s return doable.

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How does this legislation have an effect on Fortnite and the iPhone? 

Essentially the most related a part of the mandate is that Apple should allow customers within the EU to entry various marketplaces on their gadgets and allow builders to distribute their apps by these various platforms.

With the DMA, Fortnite now not has to play by Apple’s App Retailer guidelines.

Apple vs. Epic Video games: The sport developer racks up a win

If readers will recall, Epic Video games and Apple had a really public falling out again in August 2020. Those that play the massively widespread multiplayer battle-royale sport should buy in-game objects and character skins through the Fortnite foreign money V-Bucks. That summer time, Epic Video games launched a brand new approach for Fortnite gamers to buy V-Bucks at a reduction by bypassing Apple’s App Retailer’s in-app purchases and shopping for instantly from Epic Video games. 

Credit score: Epic Video games

This workaround meant that Apple would lose out on its 30 p.c reduce that it will get from customers who make purchases from its App Retailer. This circumvention was additionally in violation of Apple’s App Retailer insurance policies. Shortly after Epic Video games made its announcement, Apple eliminated Fortnite from the App Retailer.

As a substitute of scrapping the V-Bucks low cost, Epic Video games determined to go to battle with Apple. The developer filed an antitrust lawsuit towards Apple, which had combined outcomes for each events. Different tech giants like Microsoft and Google took sides, and Epic Video games CEO Tim Sweeney made it clear the Fortnite would mainly be “blacklisted” from the App Retailer for years as the businesses exhausted all authorized choices. 

Now, because of the EU’s DMA, Epic Video games can distribute an official iPhone app by various iOS app shops and keep away from Apple’s in-app buy reduce with out breaking the corporate’s App Retailer insurance policies. 

In response to Apple, iOS modifications associated to the EU’s DMA legislation will roll out in March with iOS 17.4.

Bear in mind, at the least for now, this solely impacts iPhone customers within the European Union. So, sorry, U.S., UK, and gamers all over the place else on the planet. There’s nonetheless no Fortnite iOS app for you. (Nevertheless, there are different methods to play Fortnite in your machine through third-party companies, comparable to by Xbox Cloud Gaming or Nvidia’s GeForce Now.)

Nonetheless, for Fortnite gamers in Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Republic of Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Eire, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden, it is a little like successful a Victory Crown.