The developers of Fortnite, Epic Games, have officially announced that it will be shutting down its popular battle royale title in China. The publisher revealed this news on its official website in China and stated that it is ending the “test” version of the game in the region this month.
According to the official post, no new user will be able to sign up or download the massively popular battle royale game as of 1st of November 2021. Furthermore, Epic Games will be completely shutting down its servers in the region on November 15. In this post, the studio also thanked its players for “boarding the bus” and participating in the game. Unfortunately, Epic Games did not offer any specific reason as to why it has decided to pull out the mobile port of one of the most popular multiplayer game currently in the market.
Although, it might have to do with the various restrictions it had faced in China. For those unaware, China had recently introduced a new regulation that restricted gaming hours for children below the age of 18 that are now only allowed to play video games three hours per week. Notably, the games that have launched in China have to undergo several changes to comply with local standards.
This holds especially true for battle royale entries that have to remove any form of blood while also ensuring that the BR game is portrayed as a military training simulator rather than a last man standing game. Despite being a major franchise, Fortnite was never really that popular in China to begin with. While the PC version had dominated PUBG PC, PUBG Mobile has been more successful in the handheld gaming segments. Till date, the game in China was missing many features and updates, including in app purchases and certain DLC contents as well.
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