Just a day after third-party app stores were officially allowed on the iPad in the European Union, Epic Games announced on X that the Epic Games Store can now be installed on iPadOS. However, you need to live in a EU country and have an Apple account registered for that country in order to install it.
Tuesday’s launch is related to the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), a set of market fairness and pro-competition rules. For the past year, the Commission has designated several so-called gatekeepers that operate “core platform service.” The operating system that powers the iPad, iPadOS, is a late addition to the list of regulated platforms.
As a result of the designation, Apple had six months to update iPadOS to make sure that people living in the EU could install alternative app stores. On Friday, the company announced this would be possible with the release of iPadOS 18.
It looks like Epic Games was well prepared for this moment as the company released its game store for the iPad the day after the release of iPadOS 18. The games maker had already released the Epic Games Store on iOS, as third-party app stores have been allowed for several months on the iPhone (also as a result of DMA requirements).
The iPad version of the Epic Games Store is similar to what you can find on iOS. You can install it from Epic’s website. Once the store has been installed, iPad users can use it to download and install Fall Guys, Fortnite and Rocket League Sideswipe — three of the games available at launch. Games are optimized to run in full screen on the iPad.
When the company first brought the Epic Games Store to iOS, it said it would work with other game developers so that they could also launch games on iOS and iPadOS without going through Apple’s App Store. But there’s no change on this front as yet — so it still seems to be a work in progress.
