Fortnite is rated PG13. That is the same as The Sims 2 was. I would be perfectly happy with a child of any age playing a game like The Sims (well, as happy as I would be with any child playing with any computer game....). I can't imagine any circumstances under which I would buy a child a game called 'Red Dead Redemption' or 'Hunt: Showdown'. I'm not going to pretend to know whether Star Wars is popular with children, I'm the exact wrong generation to have had any interest in it - but I'd say that none of these examples are aimed at children, and small children are essentially Playmobils market now.
All historical themes from Playmobil have been a random pick and mix. None of them have produced a cohesive world, and have ignored less comfortable areas.
Any thoughts on why Playmobil Head Office makes its decisions are pure conjecture - it's a private company. But the fact that they're still selling 5249 and 5245 on the German Site just makes me think they have a pile of them left over, mostly because I bought 5249 about 5 years heavily reduced, and I think they have been on the constant sale rotation since then (and the use of real boxes indicates they were made for shops, rather than the DS side).
Lets look at an totally unpolitical theme - the modern mansion 5574 and associated sets. These have been constantly available and on-sale online, which indicates to me that it was a failure rather than a raving success.
If kids weren't aware of
Star Wars: The Mandalorian — a space western, if ever there as one —, Disney would not be licensing action-figures and whatnot ( including LEGO sets ), sold in the toy-isle at Walmart, in the US, including obviously kid-oriented plush toys and Halloween costumes for kids! It's one of, if not
the, most popular show on Disney+ right now.
Regarding
Fortnite, I can attest from personal experience that it is very popular with tweens ( ages 9 to 12 ), and even younger ( for example, primary school kids where I live all know the little Fortnite victory dances; so they are all aware of it, if not playing it ). That's well within Playmobil's principal target age bracket, btw ( note: age 9, according to developmental research, being the peak age for
worldplay ). That's despite the fact that the official age recommendation for Fortnite is 'Teen' ( PG-13 ) in the US, and PEGI 12 in Europe, as you pointed out.
My point about Fortnite being that the
same dynamic likely applies to the popular western video-games I mentioned, regarding official parental guidance rating vs. who's
actually playing them. Also, specifying a permissible age group, like "Teen", has a perverse way of making the adjacent, younger demographic want to get their hands on it! That's just human nature.
As far as the western comics I mentioned, which are still doing well in continental Europe, 3 of them are aimed at a younger audience ( kids and tweens ):
Yakari ( Indians ),
The Bluecoats ( ACW ), and
Lucky Luke ( Wild West ). The overall point being that kids and tweens are definitely aware of the western genre — and archetypes —, as a play theme, and it's not going away ( kind of like...
History! 
).
As far as historical Playmobil set 'coherence', the sometimes magnificent period dioramas that can be made in, say, the medieval period, or the western era, indicate that they are very coherent — by which I meant
homogeneous to the overall period ( as opposed to heterogeneous, as in 'not belonging there' ). The period sets don't come all at once, though, but if you are patient and/or go to the second-hand market, you can indeed create nice historical reconstructions ( as seen in
this forum, for ex ). That's why selling the fort without the cavalry is in my view a dismal shame, as well as a missed opportunity for those interested ( kids and adults ) in putting together a more complete and verisimilar western 'little world'.
The Mandalorian kid's costume
( available from size 3 = age 2 to 3, on up! )
[ rifle and gun sold separately ]
