During the E3 Fortnite Pro-Am tournament, Epic Games finally made the announcement we all were waiting for. Competitive Fortnite is officially here. Beginning in Fall of 2018, players will be able to start qualifying for the first Fortnite World Cup. The inaugural competitive season will conclude at some point in 2019.
The Fortnite World Cup will be a truly open competition and anyone will be able to qualify. Selections will be based on merit and, unlike the League of Legends LCS and Overwatch’s OWL, Epic Games will not be selling teams or franchise slots. A transcription of the video above offers additional details:
To celebrate the community and competitive play, we’re pumped to announce the 2019 Fortnite World Cup. We’ll be supporting community-run events, online events and major competitions all over the world. Anyone can participate and anyone can win. You will have the chance to grab a Fortnite World Cup spot by competing in official qualifiers around the globe. The $100 million prize money will be split between many events at all different levels of competition. Fortnite World Cup will focus on solos and duos, but there will be plenty of opportunities for you to squad up in competition too. This is for you, the players.
Qualifying for the Fortnite World Cup will be based on merit and Epic will not be selling teams or franchises and we won’t allow third party leagues to do so either. Stay tuned because rules, clear code of conduct and specifics about platforms and the initial schedule for Fall 2018 are on the way. We can’t wait to see the Fortnite competition heat up. Thank you for joining us on this journey.
As we wrote about in May, Fortnite has committed to rewarding $100 million in competitive prize pools for the upcoming season. Over the last several weeks, we have also provided extensive coverage of pro esports organizations putting together squads for competitive Fortnite events. TSM, OpTic Gaming, Team Liquid and Echo Fox are among the many organizations that have come forth with roster announcements or plans to build a team. One of the notable points about the World Cup was that it would focus more on solo and duo competition. We can’t say how this will affect these teams without further details at this time.
With so little information given at this time, more announcements are surely on the way. A deeper breakdown of tournament rules and the schedule for the Fall 2018 qualification season are coming soon. As always, stay tuned for coverage of all future updates and developments.
Published: Jun 12, 2018 09:05 pm