Thanks to Nvidia's cloud streaming platform, Fortnite is returning to iOS

When developer Epic Games gave Fortnite players the opportunity to save a few dollars by making payments through its own platform instead of Apple's, the game was booted out of the App Store. Apple's regulations, which Epic agreed to, allow Apple to kick out games and developers that try to bypass Apple's 30% cut of in-app payments by offering their own payment system. In court, Epic tried to portray Apple as a monopoly and Apple practically said that Epic owed it a debt of gratitude for the amount of time and money it spent promoting Fortnite. The bottom line is that while Fortnite is no longer available from the App Store, it still can be played on iOS thanks to Nvidia.

Nvidia announced on Thursday that GeForce NOW, the company's cloud gaming system, will be bringing a touch version of Fortnite to iOS via Safari. Nvidia notes that while the games in the GeForce NOW library are best experienced on mobile devices with the use of a gamepad, it is working with Epic Games to develop a "touch-friendly" version of Fortnite because "touch is how over 100 million Fortnite gamers have built, battled and danced their way to Victory Royale." Working on the game to make it touch-friendly is going to delay its release.

Mobile Fortnite players will be able to sign in to Epic's PC storefront and find Fortnite on the iOS version of Ge Force NOW. While not exactly as seamless as playing Fortnite was when it was available from the App Store, at least those who have only played the game on iOS will have that opportunity once again.

Documents filed in the court battle between Epic and Apple state that there were 116 million Fortnite players who played on iOS and 73 million played the game only on iOS. The number of Daily Active Users on iOS was 2.5 million or 10% of the 25 million who played every day across all platforms. And more in-app purchases were made on iOS than on Android.

Despite this scintillating news that mobile Safari will allow Fortnite to take a backdoor into the iOS platform, users no doubt would prefer that Apple and Epic kiss and make up so that the iOS Fortnite app can return.