Epic Games is escalating competitive Fortnite in 2019. Introducing the Fortnite World Cup, a series of weekly Fortnite battle royale esports events lasting throughout the year, with each featuring a $1 million prize. At the heart of the World Cup will be a 3-day Finals event featuring the top 100 Solo players and top 50 Duos teams competing for a $30 million prize pool. Across all of 2019, the Fortnite World Cup event prize pool will grow to an impressive $100 million total.

Starting April 13 and running through June 16, 10 weekly Open Online Qualifiers will be held for the Fortnite World Cup. Each of these Open Online Qualifiers will have a prize pool of $1 million, though the exact details regarding how players compete and win have yet to be explained. While the Open Online Qualifiers end June 16, these weekly cash tournaments, and their $1 million prize pools will last throughout 2019.

After the final Fortnite Open Online Qualifier is finished, Epic Games will invite the top 100 Solo players and the top 50 Duos teams to New York City for the World Cup Finals. Every player invited will be guaranteed a $50,000 prize, though the overall prize pool of the event will be $30 million. The winner of the Solo tournament alone will walk away with $3 million.

Despite Fortnite's unprecedented success in 2018, the game's esports competitive scene is still developing. That's partly due to the complications associated with having an esports league that requires 100 players to be in one place, each with their own PC hardware. But it's also could be due to Epic Games seemingly having shown little interest in developing its esports scene until now.

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Comparatively, Epic Games is doing quite well when it comes to battle royale esports. PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds is also only just starting its homegrown esports league, the National PUBG League, in 2019. Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, meanwhile, is more focused on its multiplayer esports, and questions have already begun regarding whether a Blackout league is going to be passed over.

As of now, Fortnite competitor Apex Legends doesn't even have a custom game option for tournament organizers to use for events. Early Apex Legends tournaments on Twitch have used a unique format and yet have been popular, but it has a long ways to go. With all that said, it will be interesting to see if Fortnite's esports scene grows in a big way in 2019.

Fortnite is available now on Android, iOS, PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One.

Source: Epic Games