Fortnite is about to get even more competitive after Epic announced the World Champions Series.
At last weekend’s Fortnite World Cup, announcer Sundown revealed Epic’s plans for the next stage of competitive Fortnite. It’s called the Fortnite Champions Series, and it will change the way people compete in the world’s most popular battle royale.
The full details are expected to be revealed by the time Season 10 starts (which is currently expected to be August 1st), but we do have a few details to go on already.
First, the Champions Series will revolve around an online leaderboard. Whereas the Fortnite World Cup was open to anyone who emerged from the online qualifiers, the Champions Series will track player progress throughout the season. "Every single result" will matter, according to Sundown, with “millions” in prize dollars up for grabs.
We’re short on the details, but based on the description, it sounds like there will be some sort of points system implemented for Season 10 that will keep track of each player's progress outside of kills and Victory Royales. Then, at the end of the season, the top players could all get invited to an official tournament to see who is the ultimate winner of the season. Or it might all be decided just by a single game - we’ll have to wait for Epic to provide details to know for sure how it’ll work.
The first annual Fortnite World Cup finished last weekend with a prize pool of $30 million. Solo champion Bugha took home $3 million of that prize, with the rest being divvied among the remaining players in both single and duo tournaments.
With just over 1.3 million viewers, the Fortnite World Cup nearly broke the all-time highest viewer count of any Twitch broadcast.
The FWC might be the first sign of former Overwatch league commissioner Nate Nanzer's work. Nanzer left Blizzard to join Epic as its top eSports planner. He's in charge of over $100 million in prize money to divvy out in Fortnite. With the Fortnite World Cup out of the way, he's still got a ton of cash left over to spend on Victory Royales.