Fortnite

Epic's multi-year antitrust war with Apple and Google reshaped app-store policy enough that Fortnite returned to the US iOS App Store in 2024 after Epic won key rulings against Apple, while its 2025 settlement with Google closed out the parallel fight on Android. Inside the game, Epic doubled down on turning Fortnite into a platform of modes rather than one shooter: LEGO Fortnite's survival-crafting spinoff became a massive hit after its late-2023 launch, Fortnite Festival built a real rhythm-game audience around Metallica and other acts, and recurring Fortnite OG nostalgia seasons kept pulling lapsed players back in alongside Marvel and Star Wars crossover events.

Our take: Epic's bet that the courtroom fight and the game itself are the same battle has basically been vindicated — winning platform-neutrality concessions matters far less if nobody's still playing, and LEGO Fortnite proved Epic can still invent entirely new reasons to open the app rather than just leaning on crossover cosmetics. That's a harder trick to pull off five-plus years into a game's life than most competitors have managed.

The thing to track going forward is whether Fortnite's multi-mode strategy (Festival, LEGO, Rocket Racing, OG) keeps each audience engaged on its own terms or starts cannibalizing playtime from the core battle royale — a platform spread this thin only works as long as each piece still feels essential rather than like filler between season passes.