Mentioned in this article Games: Fortnite

Epic Games’ competitive development update for Fortnite states that the company intends to work with more third-party organizers this year.

The developer had previously imposed limitations on third parties that reduced the Fortnite esports ecosystem.

ESL will host a $500K USD tournament in early March.

Fortnite developer Epic Games has released the second part of its statement regarding the state of the game’s competitive development, detailing plans to improve spectating, access to statistics, and improving the overall competitive experience. In this update, Epic states its intention to work with more third-party tournament organizers this year.

The early days of Fortnite esports were, as is the case in most games, a bit of a gold rush with event organizers and influencers like Daniel “Keemstar” Keem holding their own tournaments and experimenting with competitive formats due to a lack of official Epic-sponsored events. Eventually, Epic’s $100M investment into Fortnite esports combined with an imposed limit on prize pools for third-party events significantly reduced the number of Fortnite competitions not officially organized or sanctioned by Epic.

This year, the developer appears to be reversing its strategy. ESL will host a $500K tournament in early March, and Epic teamed up with the Australian Open for an open tournament earlier this year.

According to Epic’s statement: “The vision for competition in Fortnite is to make competitive play broadly available to everyone. This includes more game modes, playstyles, and formats in structured competition. This broadens the scope and definition of competitive Fortnite while also celebrating exceptional talent and a variety of gameplay skills across all of Fortnite’s game modes.”

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The first season of Fortnite esports will culminate in a World Cup event, though details of the competition have yet to be released. In previous statements, Epic has said that its events and updates leading up to the World Cup will each serve to test various technical, broadcast, and operational aspects of Fortnite competition in preparation for the season finale.

One such test came in the form of the Winter Royale – an online tournament hosted through an in-game organization system. According to Epic Games, over 9M players participated in the Winter Royale.