Epic Games’ popular online battle royale game Fortnite is getting a World Cup alongside a slew of community and organized events.
Epic plans to support community events, online events and major organized competitions around the world. Anyone can participate and win in these player-focused events.
Qualifiers for the World Cup will begin this fall, culminating in the first ever Fortnite World Cup in late 2019. The competition is set to focus on Solos and Duos. However, there will also be opportunities for players to squad-up, according to the Fortnite team.
Additionally, the World Cup will feature merit-based qualifications, which means Epic Games won’t sell teams or franchises. Epic won’t allow third-party leagues to do so either.
The announcement comes today in celebration of the Fortnite community. The Fortnite team also announced today that the game has grown to 125 million players in less than a year.
Furthermore, the team said that the $100 million USD that Epic is putting into prizes will be up for grabs. Events and different levels of competition will split the money accordingly.
Fortnite is ridiculously popular — and profitable. The game made almost $300 million in April and in its first month on iOS the title earned over $25 million. It’s likely that the game’s upcoming competitions, events and the World Cup, will only increase these earnings.
Even Nintendo is getting in on the Fortnite craze. At the company’s E3 conference yesterday, the Japanese gaming company announced that Fortnite would be available on the Switch.
Despite the popularity, Sony is playing hardball with the game. Microsoft blamed Sony for not allowing Fortnite players to play with gamers on other consoles. Furthermore, Sony is coming under fire for restricting the accounts of Fortnite players on PlayStation. Those accounts won’t work on any rival game consoles — including the Nintendo Switch — leaving many players frustrated.
With competition season on the horizon, these restrictive policies from Sony may push players to other platforms.
Source: Fortnite
