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Epic Games is going to kick start the first year of competitive Fortnite tournaments with $100 million worth of prize pools, the company announced today.
This massive sum of money will help fund prize pools for a number of different Fortnite competitions throughout the 2018-2019 season, said Epic. The company has not yet specified when this season of play will begin, but said last month that it plans to hold a 100-person tournament during E3 in June called Fortnite Party Royale.
Epic didn’t get into specific tournaments or possible formats, but the company did include a hint that it’s looking outside of the box of traditional esports for inspiration.
“We’re getting behind competitive play in a big way, but our approach will be different — we plan to be more inclusive, and focused on the joy of playing and watching the game,” said Epic.
Based on this, it seems likely that Epic will attempt to bridge the gap between Fortnite’s professional competitors and the massive audience that enjoys playing the game and watching their favorite personalities on Twitch. This wouldn’t be much different from some of the tournaments that the community is already organizing, such as UMG’s Friday Fortnite competition, which brings together some of Fortnite’s most popular Twitch and YouTube stars to see which team can get the most kills.
