Epic Games announced that it’ll donate proceeds earned from Fortnite between March 20 and April 3 towards humanitarian relief operations for victims of Ukraine as it faces the Russian invasion.

The company said “Epic is committing all its Fortnite proceeds from March 20, 2022, through April 3, 2022, to humanitarian relief for people affected by the war in Ukraine. Xbox is joining us in this effort and is committing their net proceeds for Fortnite during this time, so that we can get more aid to the people of Ukraine.”, and added that this help will include “emergency aid, including health support, food and clean water, essential supplies, legal aid, and shelter”. 

Epic’s move comes ahead of the new Fortnite chapter’s release date, which is on March 20. The game developer confirmed that proceeds include real-money purchases made in-game, like the Fortnite Crew, in-game cosmetics, V-Bucks card, and battle passes. 

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Further, Epic clarified “using V-Bucks in Fortnite will not be included as those are not real-money purchases”. 

The game developers also went into detail about how the funds would be distributed and said they wouldn’t wait for the actual funds to come in since that’d take time. Instead, Epic will log the transactions made immediately, and send the fund to relevant groups within days. 

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Epic announced that aid would be sent to Direct Relief, United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), United Nations World Food Program (UNWFP) and The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), with more organizations to be added in weeks to come. 

The company has already severed ties with Russia due to its invasion of Ukraine, but people could still access their games. President Vladimir Putin sent in troops on February 24, vowing to “denazify” and “demilitarize” Ukraine, and since then Russian troops have targeted civilians, due to which the nation has been accused of war crimes