Epic Games Trolls Apple Over 'Fortnite' Ban, Promotes 'PUBG Mobile'

The ongoing legal showdown between Epic Games and Apple over the removal of “Fortnite” from the App Store just took a strange turn. Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney promoted rival battle royale game “PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds” to demonstrate how valuable the Unreal Engine is for Apple users.

With suits and countersuits likely to prolong this battle, Epic Games’ Sweeney seems to want to have fun amid the chaos. When Apple promoted a massive new update for “PUBG Mobile” on iOS on August 28, they seemingly promoted one of the biggest rivals to “Fortnite” in the battle royale genre.

However, while Epic Games might normally view “PUBG Mobile” as competition for “Fortnite,” the game actually uses Epic Games’ Unreal Engine. That’s the same Unreal Engine that Apple tried to cut off updates to on iOS and Mac. Thus, Sweeney decided to promote the game as well on Twitter, GameSpot reports.

Although it would seem that Sweeney is being passive-aggressive with his tweet, the fact is that if Apple does eventually stop support for Unreal Engine on its devices, it would also likely impact “PUBG Mobile.”

Unreal Engine is, after all, one of the most popular game engines in the world, with support for nearly every device covering consoles, PC, and mobile. It's not only used on its own for games but has been modified over the years by other studios to fit their projects. Unreal Engine 5 will also be supported on next-generation systems.

For their part, Sweeney and Epic Games have continued their shots at Apple as emblematic in its “Free Fortnite” campaign and tournament and in their spoof of Apple’s classic 1984 Super Bowl ad.

It also gave away assets so players can make their own Free Fortnite merchandise, even giving permission for them to sell it. Since the logo parodies one of Apple's earlier designs, it seems Epic is trying to win in the court of public opinion if it can't actually win its lawsuit.

Despite not being as successful as “Fortnite” (which just received its Season 4 update on platforms other than iOS), “PUBG Mobile” has managed to carve out a healthy niche. Its 1.0 update will include major improvements across the board, and a new competition is going to award $2 million in prizes.

At this moment, it certainly looks like this battle is going to get a lot weirder before it concludes.