How to Connect A Supervised Nintendo Switch Account to Epic Games

I don’t share about my kids on here much anymore, but this is something that needed to be shared. Our family got a Nintendo Switch in 2020. I think our son sold us on the whole “Animal Crossing is good for our mental health” bit that was floating around. The Switch has primarily been played by our son and he has always been under a supervised Nintendo Switch account. Even at age 14, we have limitations (and he has a new Nintendo Switch 2 he purchased with his own money. The Switch 2 has an amazing parent app I highly recommend!)

That said, last summer he received gift cards for Fortnite V-bucks for his birthday. You have to redeem the gift cards on the Epic Games website, and we spent hours (days??) trying to figure out how to connect a supervised Nintendo Switch account to Epic Games. I did finally find a blog post that had the information (a site called Our Boy Life), only to learn the blog had shut down (I was able to look on the way back machine to help get the instructions and within an hour, we were set.)

So here we are with the gift cards, trying to log into Epic Games and having a TIME because we kept getting stuck in a loop. He has a supervised Nintendo account, so no email is associated with his Nintendo account. This made it difficult to connect his account rather than my parent account to an Epic Games account. V-bucks are non-transferrable, so we had to figure out how to redeem them on his own account.

To make things a little worse, his supervised account was under an account my husband managed. Our daughter now has a Nintendo Switch Lite and also has a supervised account (she’s several years younger.) I knew I wanted to get the two account under one parent account and then have the Nintendo Switch Online family account. So if you’re in a similar situation, start there. Move the account to the final parent account first. Then continue with the below steps:

Fix the “Nameless” Epic Games Account

Since he had already played Fortnite on his Nintendo Switch, he had what some refer to as a “nameless Epic Games” account. When he first started playing Fortnite, he chose a screen name and was automatically assigned an Epic ID. I had to figure out how to access this “nameless” account and connect it to his Nintendo Switch supervised account.

It seemed that I should be able to choose the option on Epic Games to sign in using a Nintendo account, but it kept taking me to a form that required an email address rather than opening a window to sign in a Nintendo account. I was going in circles and stuck in this endless loop. Then I found the blog post and the solution. The key? Use an incognito window in my browser. Once I did that, it was smooth sailing. It’s painful now to think of how much time I spent. I listed step by step instructions below. I hope this saves you some time!

12 Steps to Connect a Supervised Nintendo Switch Account to Epic Games

I wrote these instructions assuming your child already has Fortnite installed on their Nintendo Switch and has a “nameless Epic Games” account (see above).

• Open incognito window in your browser. I used Google Chrome.
• On epicgames.com click sign in. Do not use any previous Epic login information.
• Click on the option to sign in using a Nintendo account
• A window should pop up with the Nintendo sign in page.
• Log in using your child’s Nintendo sign-in ID and password.
• You’ll be prompted to ask permission from your parent.
• Check the parent’s email used for their Nintendo account for the permission request email.
• Open that email and click on the link and sign into the parent account to approve sharing of information with Epic Games. Note: You may have a few additional steps confirming you are the adult. Follow the instructions as they come in. Some of their verification processes change from time to time. After confirming I was an adult, it automatically brought me to the page I needed to create my son’s account.
• Go back to Epic to sign in using your child’s Nintendo account again.
• Enter an email address. You will need a previously unused email address to create the Epic Games sign in.
• You should be logged in and able to view your child’s Epic account display name at the top right hand corner of the window.
• Now you’re all set up to redeem the V-bucks gift cards to your child’s own Epic account!