Epic Games has withdrawn its initial submission for Fortnite to return to the iPhone App Store in the US, after Apple failed to approve the game for launch this week.
The Fortnite maker announced last Friday, 9th May, that it had submitted Fortnite to Apple for review – a process that usually lasts just a day or two. Apple, however, doesn’t appear to be in any hurry to see Fortnite return.
Now, due to the game’s ever-updating nature, Epic has been forced to withdraw that submission and reapply using Fortnite’s next game version – which had been due to go live on all platforms this morning, but has now been postponed until tomorrow.
These developments follow the bombshell ruling of a US judge earlier this month that blasted Apple for continuing to impede developers from offering their own in-app payment methods – the issue which kickstarted Fortnite’s long-running feud with Apple and got the game booted from the App Store worldwide. Apple must now allow developers in the US to do this, the judge ruled – though the matter of approving individual apps is still at Apple’s own discretion.
“No news from Apple yet,” Epic Games boss Tim Sweeney wrote on social media last night. They’ve had it since last Friday.
“We emailed yesterday but haven’t heard back,” he continued.
“We need to release a weekly Fortnite update with new content this Friday, and all platforms must update simultaneously,” Sweeney noted in another post. “So we have pulled the previous Fortnite version submitted to Apple App Review last Friday, and we have submitted a new version for review.”
After years of legal wrangling, Fortnite is back on the App Store in the European Union – but currently nowhere else. Apple, meanwhile, has already filed to appeal the recent ruling over its US App Store.