Epic has announced new parental controls for Fortnite that allow parents to control the amount of time their kids spend playing Fortnite, as well as using the game's creative editor UEFN.
In an announcement on its official website, Epic reveals two new parental control initiatives: Time Limit Controls and Time Reports. They do pretty much exactly what you'd imagine based on the names.
Time Limit Controls allow parents to limit the time their child spends playing Fortnite or using UEFN each day, as well as allocating specific windows of time for play. Kids can then request more time, which parents can allow or deny as they see fit.
If a parent sets up time controls in Fortnite or UEFN, then their kid will get a notification when they've got 30 minutes until the time window expires. They can ask for more time if they head to Fortnite's menu, then View Time Limits.
These controls are, as you might imagine, account-wide, so it doesn't matter what device a kid is using; time limits are in effect for both Fortnite and UEFN across consoles, PC, and mobile devices.
Time limits are paused while Fortnite and UEFN are inactive, which means when Fortnite enters sleep mode or UEFN goes into idle mode. It doesn't mean while menus are open, though.
As for Time Reports, they let parents see a daily breakdown of how much time their kid is spending in Fortnite or UEFN, and they also show when parents have granted extra time for their kids to play more.
Back in 2019, three Canadian parents brought a class-action lawsuit against Epic over fears their children had become addicted to Fortnite.
The lawsuit was approved by a judge in 2022, and while these kinds of lawsuits against Epic aren't exactly common, these new parental controls could go a long way towards minimizing their frequency further.
Fortnite's new parental controls come shortly after Epic launched a brand new lawsuit, this time against Google and Samsung over the latter's practice of enabling a protocol on its mobile devices that makes downloading third-party apps harder.
Whether or not the new parental controls make a material difference remains to be seen. Stay tuned for more.
