Fortnite looks like it’s closing down in China, as servers in the region are taking steps to shut down the battle royale from today.
As PC Gamer reports, yesterday (October 31) the official Fortnite website in China announced a seemingly-permanent “suspension” to the game. While users will no longer be able to sign up or download the game from today (November 1), the game servers will shut down entirely on November 15.
As per the website:
“The test of “Fortress Night” has come to an end. We will shut down the server in the near future.”
“At 11 o’clock in the morning on November 15, 2021, the game server will be shut down, and users will not be able to log in to the game.”
Back in September, a news post on the website announced that Fortnite would be updated to comply with efforts by the Chinese government to curb the gaming habits of minors. The post revealed that from September 1, “minor users” were only able to play the game between 8PM and 9PM between Friday to Sunday and “legal holidays”.
Tencent – which owns a 40 per cent stake in Epic Games – announced in July that it would be implementing facial recognition to stop minors from playing games too late at night. The company is currently being investigated by a US national security panel over a £919million takeover of Sumo Group.
In other Fortnite news, the game celebrated Halloween by adding iconic Resident Evil characters Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine to the game.
Elsewhere, Age Of Empires 4 hit 69,000 concurrent players just three days after launch, overtaking big-name titles like Destiny 2. While this is the highest player count for any Age Of Empires game on Steam, the stats do not include the number of players that have picked it up through Xbox Game Pass.
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