People who play Fortnite on Apple Macs, iPhones and iPads are to be excluded from the game's latest update.

It follows the weeks-long escalating row between the two companies, which resulted in Fortnite being pulled from Apple's App Store.

Mac computers, which do not use the App Store, are also now affected. Fortnite's updates often make sweeping changes to the game and Thursday's introduces a partnership with Marvel comics superheroes, among other things.

Game development

Epic Games chief executive Tim Sweeney blamed Apple's plan to pull access to developer tools on 28 August, the day after the new season begins.

"Apple has said they will revoke all of Epic's Apple SDK [software development kit] access for game development on Friday," he said.

"If they do that, we won't be able to update Fortnite on Mac."Current versions of the Mac operating system try to stop users opening any apps not checked by Apple, using a process called "notarising".

Apple had attempted to revoke Epic's access to its developer tools for the entire company but was prevented by a court ruling because Epic also makes Unreal Engine, a game development tool used by lots of creators.

And removing its compatibility could have hurt companies not involved in the dispute."Epic Games and Apple are at liberty to litigate against each other," the judge ruled.

"But their dispute should not create havoc to bystanders he did, however, allow Apple to pull those kinds of permissions for Epic's own games, such as Fortnite, saying the company had "strategically chosen to breach its agreements with Apple".