After a five-year legal battle, “Fortnite” reappears on Apple screens

Five years. That's how long the Fortnite game has been banned from Apple smartphones in the United States. On Tuesday, May 20, the digital giant "reinstated Epic Games' shooter to the App Store in the United States," CNBC reports .

In 2020, Apple ruled that Epic Games was violating the rules imposed on publishers in its app store by offering its users the option of downloading and paying for updates directly on its website, “instead of going through Apple’s online payment system, which charges fees of up to 30%” .

The episode had “provoked the anger of Apple and triggered a legal battle that lasted for years,” recalls the American economic media.

Last April, however, Epic Games "won a victory" in the US court, which ruled that Apple "does not have the right to charge a commission when apps offer a payment link or to dictate what payment buttons must look like."

Epic Games immediately asked Apple to put Fortnite back on the App Store and was awaiting a decision from Apple, which reviews each new app “to ensure they work and comply with the company’s policies.”

The group "drags out the approval process," forcing Epic Games to return to court. On Monday, "a judge said Apple must explain why Fortnite hasn't yet been approved or work out a solution with Epic." On Tuesday, Fortnite reappeared on iPhones and iPads in the United States.

The battle is not over, however, as Apple has decided to appeal the first decision, which led "major publishers, such as Amazon and Spotify, to modify their apps to include links to purchase content." This means that "you can buy Kindle books in the Kindle app on an iPhone" without having to return to the AppStore .

In Europe, Epic Games had obtained, thanks to the Digital Markets Act (DMA), the regulation on digital markets adopted last year, that players could access Fortnite via third-party applications. “But even in Europe, Apple tried to delete Epic's account before backtracking.” This is because the revenue that Apple generates from its app store “represents an increasingly large share” of its turnover – it totaled “nearly 27 billion dollars” (24 billion euros) in the first quarter of 2025.