'Fortnite' Is Permanently Shutting Down In China; Here's Why

“Fortnite” will no longer be officially supported in China, cutting off countless players from the game.

“Fortnite’s” Chinese servers will be turned off on Nov.15 following the conclusion of the game’s apparent testing phase, PC Gamer reported.

The massively popular battle royale game’s official Chinese website also confirmed that it will no longer be playable after this date and that players will no longer be able to sign up for new accounts.

“Fortnite,” or “Fortress Night” in the Chinese translation, was apparently a completely different game from the version that the rest of the world plays. Premium currency was earned in-game instead of bought with real money, and several gameplay restrictions were put in place in accordance with Chinese gaming regulations, The Gamer reported.

Most of the game’s revenue comes from microtransactions, which were outlawed by the Chinese government, Gamerant noted.

Apart from the purely free-to-play nature of its currency system, some of the game’s elements were made easier to make it more accessible to beginners, and players would not earn any XP after 90 minutes of playtime. Additionally, all depictions of skulls were removed from the game.

A number of gamers and online users speculated that China’s recent crackdown on gaming led to the ultimate demise of “Fortress Night.”

A new set of regulations were recently implemented to prevent young people in China from spending too much time playing video games, with the government going as far as employing facial recognition technology to identify rulebreakers.

As of September, Chinese gamers below 18 years old will only be able to play online video games for one hour per day on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays and national holidays in an attempt to curb the alleged rampancy of gaming addiction in minors in the country.

Additionally, players have since been required to register their online gaming profiles using their real names to make monitoring easier for enforcers.

Gaming companies like Tencent, miHoYo and NetEase have all complied with the government’s rules regarding video games. All approvals for future online games in China have been frozen and will continue to be so until further notice.

“Fortress Night’s” shutdown may simply be a coincidence as the company behind the game’s operations clearly stated that the game was merely ending its testing phase later this month.