Epic Games and Apple are at war, it seems. Epic has long been unhappy with the way Apple handles the App Store on the iPhone. It all started when Epic rolled out the new payment system that allows users to bypass the App Store to buy V-Bucks, allowing them to buy them at a discounted price. This was done as a workaround at the App Store, where Apple applies a 30% charge to all transactions. In return, Apple kicked Fortnite from the App Store.
It seems Epic had a firm expectation of this to happen, as they quickly deployed attorneys and hit Apple with a lawsuit. They also released a new short film which was shown in Party Royale mode which riffs on one of Apple's most famous commercials.
Apple's original 1984 ad was meant to be a statement about how a tech monopoly was bad for people, limiting their options as consumers and turning them into drones that could only do what they were told. The idea was that this would position Apple as the alternative, with the brave upstart taking the system and showing people a better way. It was directed by Ridley Scott, director of the Alien, and Blade Runner, and originally aired during Super Bowl XVIII on January 22, 1984.
In the lawsuit Epic just released, the company accuses Apple of losing sight of that original vision and becoming exactly what it insulted itself into in the ad all those years ago. To do this, they used Apple's marketing against them, showing Fortnite's Brite Bomber skin throwing the Rainbow Smash harvesting tool through a giant screen that preached the joys of control, directly mimicking the heroine character. unnamed from the original, played at the time. by athlete and actress Anya Major.
The Epic version of the ad ends with text that explains the situation with Apple and how they blocked Fortnite from a billion iPhones, and they ask people to join the fight for #FreeFortnite.
