The goal of the requirements is to lock out players who use cheat programs that evade typical anti-cheat by running in "ring 0", or even "ring -1". In other words, cheat programs that embed themselves in the system kernel, or worse, run as a hypervisor so that anti-cheat software can't detect them. The idea is that installing these tools often requires the user to disable features like virtualization-based security; Epic's thinking is that users with these features disabled are untrustworthy. It's not so far as to accuse insecure users of wrongdoing, but rather a concern that their system environment can't be verified.
If those cheats sound like science fiction to you, they aren't. The battle between game cheaters and game service operators continues apace, with cheaters (or more accurately, cheat providers) coming up with ever more advanced methods to inject cheat functions into games. It's not an exaggeration to say that game cheating and the fight against it is one of the very most forefront battlegrounds in the world of cybersecurity.
But, back to Fortnite; Epic is very serious about keeping its biggest money-maker fair, and it expresses that commitment both in its technical development (as we just discussed) as well as with its legal team. The publisher's blog post lists a short summary of legal actions it took against Fortnite cheaters in 2025 , including multiple lawsuits it filed and settlements it reached with cheaters who were selling cheats and even stolen Epic accounts.
The ultimate takeaway is this: if you want to play in Fortnite tournaments, you'd better make sure your system fully meets the requirements for Windows 11. That's possible even if you're running an "unofficial" copy of the operating system, and if you have hardware that is capable of playing Fortnite , it's almost a given that your machine can meet the security requirements . Simply enter your system's UEFI setup and enable "Trusted Computing", "IOMMU" ("VT-d" on Intel systems), and Secure Boot. Unless you've done something really wacky with your configuration, that should get you golden to play in pro Fortnite events. Aside from your skills, anyway, you'll have to bring those yourself.
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Key considerations
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Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/video-games/pc-gaming/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/video-games/pc-gaming/epic-games-brings-secure-boot-and-tpm-to-competitive-fortnite-most-players-unaffected-by-new-measures#main
- https://www.tomshardware.com
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