‘Fortnite’ developer Epic Games donated £22million toward helping Ukrainian refuges

Epic Games, the developer behind Fortnite and the Epic Games Store, has been listed as one of the biggest donators to the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), with a donation sum ranking higher than many countries.

In a funding update (via TheGamer), the UNHCR outlined a list of the agency’s biggest contributors, ranked by their total donations. Ranking amongst countries like the United Kingdom and Japan, Epic Games was one of the organisation’s biggest contributors, and has funded £22.3million ($26.5million).

The sizeable donation puts Epic Games above several countries including Italy, France and Norway.

Other contributors from the games industry included Sony (£1.1million), Nintendo (£841,640), Koei Tecmo (£374,983), Square Enix (£373,054), and Konami (£370,770).

Back in March, Epic Games halted sales in Russia “in response to its invasion of Ukraine,” and later donated several weeks of Fortnite‘s proceeds to humanitarian relief for the country.

That resulted in the company donating £109million, which was raised in partnership with Xbox. Besides going to the UNHCR, Epic Games donated the funds to Direct Relief, UNICEF, World Food Program, and World Central Kitchen.

“Our deepest thanks to everyone who joined us in supporting humanitarian relief efforts for people affected by the war in Ukraine,” announced the developer at the time.

In a FAQ, Epic announced that it was sending the funds across “as quickly” as it could. “We’re not waiting for the actual funds to come in from our platform and payment partners, which can take a while depending on how the transaction was processed,” explained the company. “As transactions are reported, we’ll log them and send the funds to the humanitarian relief organizations within days. ”

In the months following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, developers across the games industry announced plans to donate money to humanitarian charities. That included Bandai Namco, CD Projekt Red, and Square Enix.

In other news, Epic Games has announced that it will be bringing an early end to Fortnite‘s third map.