'Fortnite: Save the World' will shut down on macOS September 23rd

Fortnite: Save the World — a castle building players-vs-zombies version of the game that preceded the battle royale spin-off — is becoming a casualty in the ongoing war between Epic Games and Apple. The two companies are fighting over Apple’s policies that mandate a cut of Epic’s profits and prevent it from including non-Apple payment options.

While the battle royale version is still playable on macOS and will continue to work, it’s already cut off from receiving new updates. The same applies to Save the World, which has continued as a premium-priced game with annual updates unlike its free counterpart, but that’s coming to an end on macOS as of September 23rd. In a blog post Epic said that Apple is to blame because it is preventing the company from signing updates, which will cause bugs in the future.

As a result, refunds are coming to “all players who purchased any Save the World Founder’s or Starter Packs (including Upgrades) and played Save the World on macOS between September 17, 2019 and September 17, 2020.” This announcement comes just after Apple said in a legal filing that Epic’s actions are a thinly-disguised attempt to reinvigorate Fortnite, citing Google Trends as evidence that interest had dropped some 70 percent in the last year.