Epic Games & Fortnite Safety Guide for Parents
A complete guide to Epic Games — home of Fortnite — including the friend system, voice chat, V-Bucks spending, and parental controls.
Epic Games is the games store and account system behind Fortnite, letting users buy, download and play PC games and connect with friends.
Official age
13+
We recommend
13+
Developer
Epic Games
Risks
4
Features to know about
Overview
Epic Games is the company behind Fortnite, one of the most-played online games in the world, as well as the Epic Games Store — a digital distribution platform that competes with Steam. Fortnite is a free-to-play battle royale game with significant social features: voice chat, a friend system, a shared lobby system, and a creative mode. Fortnite Battle Royale is rated PEGI 12 (Fortnite overall carries PEGI's Parental Guidance label) but the game is widely played by children of all ages. V-Bucks, Fortnite's in-game currency, are purchased with real money and used to buy cosmetic items and a battle pass. Epic’s account age and PEGI’s rating are different things: Epic puts a player who says they are under 13 (in the UK, 13 is the age of digital consent under UK GDPR Article 8(1)) into a restricted Cabined Account until a parent gives consent, while PEGI rates Fortnite Battle Royale 12 and Fortnite as a whole “Parental Guidance Recommended”.
How children use it
Children typically play Fortnite in squads with friends, using voice chat to coordinate. Many also play with strangers in random matchmaking, which can expose them to adult behaviour, abusive language, and unsolicited contact. The Creative mode allows children to build and share custom game maps. Epic also offers other free games through its store monthly, which broadens children's exposure to different titles. Players can send direct messages and group text chats to their friends in Fortnite, and these conversations also appear in the Epic Games Store and Epic Games mobile apps.
Main risks
Recommended privacy settings
Parental Controls
Location: epicgames.com → Account → Parental Controls
Set to: Set a PIN and require it for Epic payments
Epic Games offers parental controls that let you require your Parental Controls PIN for purchases made through Epic's payment system. It does not cover V-Bucks already held or payments made through a console or app store, so use those platforms' spending controls too.
Voice Chat
Location: Fortnite Settings → Audio → Voice Chat
Set to: Friends only or off
Voice chat with strangers is where most harmful interactions in Fortnite occur. Setting voice chat to friends-only or off prevents your child from hearing or being heard by unknown players.
Friend Requests
Location: Epic Games Account → Privacy
Set to: Friends only
Limiting who can send friend requests prevents strangers from adding your child to their friend list.
Parent actions
Set up Epic Games parental controls with a PIN required for Epic payments at epicgames.com, and use your console or app store's spending controls too
Time: 15 minutes
Set voice chat to friends-only or off to prevent contact from strangers during matches
Time: 5 minutes
Talk to your child about what is and is not acceptable behaviour from other players, and that they can leave or mute any player who is abusive
Time: 15 minutes
Related app guides
If you need to report this
In immediate danger: call 999. For non-emergency police matters, call 101.
Concerned about a child but it's not an emergency? NSPCC helpline 0808 800 5000. Childline for young people 0800 1111.
Myths & facts
Myth: Fortnite is safe from strangers because voice chat only works between friends.
Fact: Voice chat is switched on for open, public matches by default, so unless a parent changes the setting, a child can hear and be heard by adult strangers from their very first match. Epic's own settings let you set voice chat to Friends Only (the 'Friends, team members & connections' option also lets in teammates, who may be strangers) or to Nobody, and it's worth doing before they play, not after.
Myth: Because my child is under 13, Epic automatically blocks strangers from contacting them.
Fact: Accounts registered as under 13 (or the age of digital consent in their country) are placed into a 'Cabined Account' with voice and text chat switched off until a parent gives consent — but that protection only applies if the true birth date was entered at sign-up. It's worth checking what age the account itself thinks your child is.
Myth: V-Bucks can only be bought with a card each time, so spending is naturally capped.
Fact: Once V-Bucks are sitting in an account, or a card is saved, cosmetic items and Battle Pass purchases complete without re-entering payment details. Epic's Parental Controls PIN, set up at epicgames.com, can be required for purchases made through Epic's payment system, but it does not cover V-Bucks already held or payments made through a console or app store, so use those platforms' spending controls too.
Age by age
- 8-10
Fortnite Battle Royale's PEGI 12 rating is routinely ignored in practice, so if your child is playing at this age, turn voice chat off or set it to friends-only before their first match — it's on for open play by default. Set up Epic's parental controls (a Parental Controls PIN, required for purchases made through Epic's payment system) first, and if the account should be under 13, check that Epic's Cabined Account restrictions — chat off, consent needed for extra features — are actually in place.
- 11-13
Voice chat set to Friends Only (or Nobody) rather than Everybody, and Epic's Parental Controls PIN required for Epic payments, are the two settings worth checking first. If they've just turned 13 and the account was previously cabined, talk through what unlocks (chat, some external sign-ins) and agree the same friends-only rule covers the newly available features.
- 14-16
Independence can extend to managing more of their own V-Bucks budget, but keep the Parental Controls PIN in place rather than removing it, since Battle Pass and item pricing is built around repeat small purchases. Random-squad ('Fill') matches are still the main route for contact with adult strangers, so it's worth revisiting whether voice chat should stay friends-only.
- 17-plus
By this age most of the useful conversation is about habits rather than settings: how much is being spent on V-Bucks over a season, and treating any stranger from a match who tries to move the conversation to another app — Discord, Snapchat — as worth a chat, since that pattern is a common precursor to grooming.
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