Epic Says Apple Has Blocked Fortnite’s Return to the U.S. App Store — and Now Tim Sweeney Is Tweeting Tim Cook to Complain

Epic’s long-running battle with Apple over the future of Fortnite on iOS devices has taken another turn, with Epic accusing Apple of blocking its Fortnite submission so it can’t release the game to the U.S. App Store.

Earlier this month, Epic boss Tim Sweeney said Fortnite would return to the U.S. iOS App Store and iPhones in a matter of days after a significant court ruling.

On April 30, a U.S. Federal District Court in California found that Apple wilfully violated a court order in the Epic Games v. Apple case that required Apple to enable developers to offer their customers alternative ways to make purchases outside apps.

In January, IGN reported on how Sweeney had spent billions of dollars fighting Apple and Google over the way the companies run their app stores. Sweeney told IGN at the time that he considered it a long-term investment in Epic and Fortnite’s future, insisting Epic could afford to keep up the fight for decades to come.

Sweeney’s ongoing battle to get Fortnite back on iPhones and Android phones while avoiding paying store fees is well-documented. The gist is this: Epic doesn’t want to pay the now standard 30% store fees on revenue made on mobile games. Instead, it wants to run the likes of Fortnite through its own mobile store, the Epic Games Store, without Apple and Google getting in the way and gobbling up its profit. Back in 2020, this dispute ended up with Fortnite blocked from release on iOS.

After Sweeney’s tweet it was expected that Fortnite would return to iOS, but so far… nothing. And now, Epic has issued a statement to IGN providing an update:

“Apple has blocked our Fortnite submission so we cannot release to the U.S. App Store or to the Epic Games Store for iOS in the European Union. Now, sadly, Fortnite on iOS will be offline worldwide until Apple unblocks it.”

Based on this statement, Fortnite is not only blocked from the U.S. App Store, but Fortnite on iOS is offline worldwide. That’s a terrible situation for Epic, which has already lost out on billions of dollars of revenue in the five years since Fortnite was booted off iPhones. Now, Tim Sweeney is tweeting at Apple boss Tim Cook to try to get him to change his mind.

“Hi Tim. How about if you let our mutual customers access Fortnite? Just a thought.”

After the court ruling, Apple was referred to federal prosecutors for violating the U.S. court order. “Apple’s continued attempts to interfere with competition will not be tolerated,” U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers said. “This is an injunction, not a negotiation. There are no do-overs once a party willfully disregards a court order.”

The Judge referred Apple and one of its executives, Alex Roman, vice president of finance, to federal prosecutors for a criminal contempt investigation into their conduct in the case. Roman gave testimony about the steps Apple took to comply with her injunction that was “replete with misdirection and outright lies,” the judge wrote.

In a statement issued at the time, Apple said: “we strongly disagree with the decision. We will comply with the court’s order and we will appeal.” Last week, Apple asked the U.S. appeals court to pause the ruling in the Epic Games case.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.