Fortnite tease: Tim Sweeney tweets Epic Games is coming back to Apple’s world

CARY – Tim Sweeney, owner and CEO of Epic Games, created quite a stir in Twitterdom on New Year’s eve with a succinct but powerful tease:

“Next year on iOS.”

We’re in 2023 now so sometime in the next 12 months the multibillionaire says Epic’s multi-billion game Fortnite will return to Apple’s iOS world and app store after being banned two years ago in a legal fight that has spanned the globe. Don’t forget Epic has sued Google as well.

However, Sweeney offered no additional details. But it’s interesting to point out Epic has cleared one big legal Fortnite challenge – agreeing to pay $520 million to settle a huge FTC privacy complaint. So are the decks cleared for an Apple-Epic deal?

After all, there already are a couple of workarounds via Xbox and Nvidia to play Fortnite on iPhones.

Tim Sweeney (Epic Games photo)

Sweeney’s tweet has already drawn 1.5 million viewers, and comments are many – from gleeful homes that a return to the App Store could be coming for purchases and more – to some doubters who took the opportunity to rip Fortnite.

Here’s one from Kevindapperson3308:

“Sir, your game is actively falling apart.

– Hammer glitches (Infinite bounces/walking glitch)

– Visual glitches (screen appears black and only at certain angles the game can be seen)

– XP glitches. – Unable to sprint randomly Its only gotten worse as time has gone on.”

Several posters asked Sweeney questions like: what’s this mean, or can you provide more details?

The Apple-Epic dispute as well as Google-Epic are far from resolution. But perhaps Sweeney is hinting some compromise is in the works that will spare both companies a continuing bleeding of cash and management to somehow put the issues to rest.