The removal of Fortnite from the Apple App Store and the subsequent ongoing lawsuit between Epic Games and Apple is well known. As such, Fortnite players have been under the assumption that they won't be able to play the battle royale on iOS devices for the foreseeable future. It seems the wait may be shorter than expected, however. A new report claims that Fortnite will once again be playable on iOS starting later this year, but there's a major catch.
According to the BBC, the catch is that Fortnite will only be available through Nvidia's subscription cloud service GeForce Now. As such, Fortnite will not be made available through the iOS store. Instead, it will only be available through Safari. GeForce Now subscribers will be able to open the iOS Safari browser, access their accounts, and play any game they have access to. Since Fortnite is available through GeForce Now, that means that Fortnite will technically be available on iOS devices again.
What's preventing Fortnite from being playable on iOS is that there is only one way to download and update games, the Apple App Store. While Android makes it challenging to download apps outside of the Google Play Store, it's still possible. There's no such option on iOS. The closest is through a browser, either Apple's own Safari browser or another app. Browsers exist in a way that Apple can't, or at least isn't willing to, censor them. As such, cloud gaming traffic is treated the same as all other browser traffic.
As for why Fortnite hasn't been made available this way before, it's because there haven't been any cloud gaming services available this way yet. GeForce Now will be the first, with the BBC reporting that Fortnite will once again be available on iOS through GeForce Now starting later this year.
It wouldn't be surprising if GeForce Now is just the first cloud gaming service to make Fortnite available on iOS again. Microsoft has already announced plans to do something similar with xCloud and Xbox Game Pass in 2021. Epic Games could even launch its own cloud gaming service specifically for Fortnite, if it wanted to.
Regardless of the challenges, Fortnite fans who played on iOS will be pleased to know that they at least have an option to play the game. Or, at least, they will have an option soon. It's unfortunate that GeForce Now charges a subscription to use its services, but that may drive Epic Games to find more accessible solutions for players further down the line. In the meantime, Epic's lawsuit against Apple continues.
Fortnite is available now on PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One, and mobile devices, with PS5 and Xbox Series X versions also in development.
Source: BBC