Epic Games released two new parental control features on Tuesday: time limits and time reports. Now, parents are able to monitor and limit how much time their kids spend in Fortnite.
The new controls can be found in the Parental Controls section of Fortnite’s menu, or on a browser in the Epic Account Portal. This is where a parent or guardian is able to limit daily Fortnite time, pick windows of time a child can play, and allow (or not) their kid to request more playtime. In practice, a child will be able to see their time limit and window in-game, with a notification that pops up when they have 30 minutes of gaming time left. Both Fortnite and Unreal Editor for Fortnite will become unavailable once that time’s up.
Time limits work across platforms, as long as the account they’re applied to is the same. Meanwhile, time reports are basically an overview of a player’s time spent in Fortnite — regardless of whether time limits are set.
Fortnite isn’t the first game to set time limits for games — it’s a common practice, albeit set by the government, in China — but it’s more traditionally seen on gaming platforms like Valve’s Steam or Microsoft’s Xbox consoles. Valve just released new parental controls for its Steam platform in September: the Steam Families feature. These tools, like Epic Games’ new ones, let parents restrict access to games, set time limits, and allow kids to request access to a game. (Steam Families also lets a group of people share a Steam library.) Blizzard Entertainment also allows parents to set time limits for its suite of games.
Epic Games’ new permissions are in addition to what was already a robust set of tools for parents — with purchasing settings, age-rating restrictions, social permissions, and plenty more.
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