Epic Games plans to bring Fortnite to the third-party iOS app store AltStore PAL, which is only available in the EU. The company made the announcement in a Thursday blog post about its strategy for mobile stores, and it says it expects to announce support for “at least two other third-party stores soon.”
While Epic says that it plans to “bring our own mobile games including Fortnite to other mobile stores that give all developers a great deal,” it didn’t provide a specific timeline. In addition to Fortnite, Epic also plans to bring Rocket League Sideswipe to AltStore PAL, spokesperson Natalie Munoz tells The Verge.
When reached for comment, AltStore’s Riley Testut pointed to Epic’s post and said that “we’re very excited to be bringing Fortnite and more to AltStore PAL.”
The company is also working on bringing Fortnite to iOS in the EU, which it says will happen “soon,” and launching its own app store on iOS and Android.
Epic also announced that “we will be ending distribution partnerships with mobile stores that serve as rent collectors without competing robustly and serving all developers fairly, even if those stores offer us a special deal for our own games.” Epic is presumably talking about Apple and Google here, given the company’s disputes with both companies over their app store practices. Munoz declined to comment.
Epic also plans to pull Fortnite and other apps (Rocket League Sideswipe and Postparty, according to Munoz) from Samsung’s Galaxy Store. The company cites two factors as to why. One is Samsung’s “Auto Blocker” feature that blocks sideloading by default (though you can turn the feature off, according to 9to5Google). Another is “public revelations in the US Epic v. Google lawsuit of ongoing Google proposals to Samsung to restrain competition in the market for Android app distribution,” presumably referring to initiatives like Project Banyan, which Google gave up on.
Apple, Google, and Samsung didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.
Update, July 25th: Added details from Epic about what apps it will remove from the Galaxy Store.
