Fortnite
A shooter in cartoon clothing, where the friend group meets up and the shop never closes.
A round can't be paused, and it lasts as long as it lasts, anywhere from two minutes to half an hour. So agree an end time rather than a number of rounds, and leave five to ten minutes of slack for finishing the round in progress.
The limits by age, and the moves that make them stick: Screen time for kids and teens, a complete guide.
The most important things to know
For plenty of kids, Fortnite isn't primarily a game, it's where the friend group meets after school. Saying no can mean saying no to a slice of their social life, and that trade-off is what makes the Fortnite question hard.
Fortnite is the biggest game in the “battle royale” category: a crowd of players (typically 50–150) drops onto a big map, teams of one to four try to knock the other teams out, and the playable zone keeps shrinking, forcing the action as players get pushed closer and closer together. Winning is genuinely a thrill: your team has just knocked out maybe fifty other teams of real people around the world. And with that many variables in play, every round is a one-off. That kind of variable reward is part of what gets a player hooked. “Just one more game!”
Kids who say they're under 13 get a restricted “cabined account”: voice chat, text chat and purchases stay locked until a parent consents. It only works if the birth date entered was honest.
What's positive about Fortnite for your child?
Fortnite is collaboration, communication and real skill, and the team that gathers there after dinner is real friendship, not just screen time. For many kids it's the most important meeting place they have outside school.
How can Fortnite affect your child negatively?
Fortnite is free because the shop isn't, and the pressure is social. Anyone who hasn't bought anything plays with the default character, and everyone can see it. The battle pass and daily quests are built so that a day without playing means rewards your child misses out on. It's FOMO by design.
This is on record. The US consumer watchdog ordered Epic to pay over half a billion dollars in 2022, partly over design that tricked players into purchases they never meant to make.
And voice chat with unknown teammates can be a rough schoolyard. The tone in there wasn't made for ten-year-olds.
Settings you set together
- Real birth date when the account is created, so the protections for the youngest actually engage.
- Voice chat: off for the youngest, or friends only. Set it up together.
- Set a cap in “Fortnite Content Ratings”, in the parental controls on the Epic account or under Parental Controls in the game menu. Fortnite is many games now (Battle Royale, LEGO Fortnite, Rocket Racing, Fortnite Festival and thousands of player-made islands), each with its own PEGI rating, and anything above the cap asks for your six-digit PIN. Battle Royale is PEGI 12, so a cap below that keeps the main mode locked while LEGO Fortnite and Rocket Racing stay open.
- The toggle “Allow Creative Mode and Unreal Editor for Fortnite” in the same place decides whether your child can build and publish islands of their own.
- Purchases: a PIN and a standing agreement, for instance V-bucks from their own money only.
Ask your child about the game
- How does your squad decide where to land?
- Tell me about the closest you've come to a Victory Royale lately. Where did it go wrong, or right?
- Who's the best player in your squad, and what do they do differently from the rest of you?
- Is there a skin in the shop you'd want right now, and what is it about that one?
Glossary
- battle royale
- The main mode: around a hundred players drop onto an island, the last team standing wins, and a round takes anywhere from two to twenty-five minutes.
- the storm
- The wall that closes in on the island through the round, pushing everyone closer together; outside it you lose health, so nobody can hide forever.
- Zero Build
- The same mode without the building, which many kids and most parents find easier to follow and fairer for beginners.
- Creative
- Player-made maps and modes inside Fortnite, from parkour to one-on-one duels; like Roblox in miniature, and much of what younger kids play.
- V-Bucks
- Fortnite's currency, bought with real money; a skin usually costs between 800 and 2,000 V-Bucks, and 1,000 V-Bucks is about 9 euros.
- skin
- The outfit your child plays in; purely cosmetic, it gives no advantage, and the social pressure is the whole point of it.
- default
- The free standard character you play as if you have bought nothing; being called a default is a dig at exactly that.
- battle pass
- A season-long ticket that pays out rewards the more you play, which is why a day away feels like a loss.
- item shop
- The shop that changes every day, so the skin your child wants may be gone tomorrow; that scarcity is designed.
Sources
- Epic Games: Cabined Accounts, the restrictions for under-13s ↗
- FTC (2022): Epic Games fined more than $500 million over purchase flows and privacy ↗
- Epic Games: Parental Controls, “Fortnite Content Ratings” and the other toggles ↗
- Epic Games (2023): Introducing IARC ratings in Fortnite, a rating for every experience ↗
The whole mindset behind the guide, with the research and the open-door principle: Kids and social media, a parent's guide
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