Epic Games has created a new account system for kids playing popular games like Fortnite that will be introduced upon launching them for the first time after the update. Since the early days of Fortnite, the battle royale has been significantly successful among the younger audience and Epic Games continues to look for ways to keep kids safe from malicious actors, and are even opening the door to Item Shop limits.Fortnite, Fall Guys, and Rocket League have all received a recent change that has introduced an age-restricted account for kids known as Cabined Accounts. Age restrictions have been prominently used across the internet since its early days and although there are some ways for fans to work around the system, it's a preventative measure from harmful content reaching children. Although consoles and games like Minecraft offer parental controls that can allow guardians to implement limitations for playing the aforementioned games, many kids are able to circumnavigate things, but these Cabined Accounts could make that a little bit harder.According to Epic Games, each of the titles receiving the Cabined Accounts will prompt players once to enter their age when they launch the game. Should these gamers be below the age of eighteen, they will also be asked for a parent or guardian's email address in order for parental controls to be properly implemented, but adult players will continue to follow the standard protocol. The Epic Games launcher itself will be accessible as children wait for the parental consent process, but they won't be able to use certain features until limits are lifted by parents that choose to do so.
Epic Games began rolling out the account changes with a December 7 update which may suggest that if someone hasn't gotten the change on their copy of Fortnite, Fall Guys, or Rocket League yet, it may be coming in the next few days. Cabined Accounts will automatically be unable to communicate through voice or text chat, purchase items with money, download games that aren't owned by Epic Games, get recommendations based on activity, receive push notifications, trade in Rocket League, use custom display names, utilize SMS two-factor authentication or link accounts to external services. These preventative measures may prevent further issues where kids are being targeted by adults in games like Fortnite or other cases where they spend excessive sums of money on in-game cosmetics.
Among the confused response to Epic Games' announcement of Cabined Accounts were a few parents asking what the differences between the new account type and a child account are. Other fans questioned things in the Cabined Account FAQ such as inclusive, different filters specified for certain ages, and Fortnite restrictions like linking social media accounts, but Epic Games has yet to post an update.
Fortnite is available now for Mac, Mobile, PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.