Fortnite will return to the US iOS App Store next week, Epic Games says

Apple can no longer charge a fee for purchases made outside of an iOS app, Epic Games vs. Apple judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers ruled Wednesday night.

The judge had issued a permanent injunction in 2021 forbidding Apple from blocking third-party payment options — and the court found that Apple was in “willful violation” of the 2021 injunction, and started to collect a 27% fee on transactions made outside of the iOS store. “Apple’s continued attempts to interfere with competition will not be tolerated,” Gonzalez Rogers wrote in a document filed Wednesday.

Gonzalez Rogers is looking at potential criminal contempt proceedings for Apple’s violations; she also says in the document that Apple vice president of finance “outright lied under oath” when asked about the 27% fees.

Following the decision, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney posted on X to announce that Epic Games will “return Fortnite to the US iOS App Store next week.” Further, if Apple removes the third-party payment fee worldwide, Epic Games will put Fortnite back on the iOS App Store globally and “drop current and future litigation on the topic.” Fortnite has been unavailable through the iOS App Store since 2020, when Apple blocked the game for Epic Games’ attempt to circumvent the payment fee.

The one caveat in Fortnite’s return to the iOS App Store is that, like every other app, Apple needs to approve it before it’s available to the public. Apple had previously blocked one of Epic Games’ developer accounts, but Sweeney said Wednesday that Epic Games has others it can use. It intends to upload Fortnite for approval that way. “We just have to see what Apple does,” Sweeney said. “Apple could arbitrarily reject Epic from the App Store despite us following all of the rules. But, you know, they would have to deal with various consequences of that.”

When Fortnite was removed from the App Store, Epic Games added skin to the game that was a symbol of its ongoing battle: the Tart Tycoon, a shrewd businessman with an Apple for its head. Sweeney told press Wednesday that Epic Games has prepared a second skin in the anticipation of reaching a reconciliation with Apple. “If if we’re able to reach resolution with Apple, then it might be possible for our players to have the ability to earn the Pine Patron outfit,” Sweeney said. Epic Games declined to share more information about the Pie Patron skin.

Apple doesn’t seem to agree with the ruling, so it sounds like the Pie Patron may be a ways off; the company did not respond to Polygon’s request for comment, but a spokesperson told The Verge that it “strongly disagree[s] with the decision.” Apple intends to comply with the order while appealing it.

Effective immediately, Apple can’t impose fees, restrict or block how developers place links to purchases outside of the app, and use “scare screens” to dissuade users from leaving the app.

“Apple willfully chose not to comply with this Court’s Injunction,” Gonzalez Rogers wrote. “It did so with the express intent to create new anticompetitive barriers which would, by design and in effect, maintain a valued revenue stream; a revenue stream previously found to be anticompetitive. That it thought this Court would tolerate such insubordination was a gross miscalculation. As always, the cover-up made it worse. For this Court, there is no second bite at the apple.”