Epic Games announces Fortnite’s $1,000,000 Winter Royale Online Tournament

Hello Fortnite competitors,

The high intensity battles you know from the Fall Skirmish have come to an end, but we’re excited to announce the next phase of Fortnite competitive play: the Winter Royale Online Tournament! Today we’re also revealing some major updates to our tournament system and other plans for the near future of competitive.

ONLINE TOURNAMENT FIXES
Last month, we released our in-game tournament system. With your help, we identified some critical issues that resulted in the system not accomplishing our goals for a competitive environment.

In the v6.30 update, we made critical fixes to in-game tournament matchmaking and various other bugs to provide a more competitive experience. For example, we found that players’ point totals were not influencing their matchmaking at all. Now, players will be correctly matched against opponents with similar point totals. The deeper you advance in a tournament, the more challenging the matches will become. Please note that players with many points may have to wait more than 5 minutes to find a suitable match. We will continue to explore the best fit for competition by adjusting the matchmaking process over time as needed.

We also fixed a few issues around incorrect point totals showing up post match, or points being slow to update. We hope to get closer to real-time point tracking as we move forward.

We will continue to improve this system over time, so if you haven’t given the Online Tournaments a chance since these updates, jump in during the competition windows and truly test your skills!

POP UP CUPS
You’ll start to notice different “Pop-Up Cups” within the events tab. These will be online tournaments with different game settings. Think of these as the equivalent of Competitive LTMs where we can test large adjustments in a more competitive environment.

Be sure you pay attention to the settings for each Pop-Up Cup via the “Tournament Details” button in the in-game events tab. The rules and gameplay will change over time similar to Limited Time Modes. We plan to iterate and explore different in-game adjustments by closely monitoring competitive play in these Pop-Ups. Please continue to provide feedback and let us know what you think!

$1,000,000 WINTER ROYALE OPEN FORTNITE COMPETITION
The Online Tournament system will be used next year to determine participants in the Fortnite World Cup. Starting later this month, we will hold a test event that will emulate the World Cup Qualification process. This will help us gather valuable learnings to better prepare for the process next year.

The Solo test events will consist of two parts, the Winter Royale Qualifiers and the Winter Royale Finals, which will have a total of $1,000,000 in prizes up for grabs.

There will be several chances for anyone to try and get a high score during the Winter Royale Qualifier days. The highest score you achieve during any event session will be the one that counts, so be sure to give it your all! As part of our ongoing competitive tests to prepare for the Fortnite World Cup, Winter Royale will use the same game settings as the currently available Pop-Up Cup.

The top performers in each region for NA and EU will be verified, and those players found eligible will be invited to participate in the Winter Royale Finals for their region. While this tournament will be restricted to NA and EU, we're planning on holding other region-specific tournaments in additional regions in the near future.

For those interested in competing, our Winter Royale competition dates will be the following:

WINTER ROYALE QUALIFIER (OPEN): 11/24/2018 - 11/25/2018
EUROPE WINTER ROYALE FINALS: 11/30/2018 - 12/1/2018
NORTH AMERICA WINTER ROYALE FINALS: 12/11/2018 - 12/12/2018
FOR SPECIFIC TIMES AND A LISTING OF ALL OTHER ONLINE TOURNAMENTS, BE SURE TO FOLLOW THE SCHEDULE IN THE IN-GAME EVENTS TAB. BEST OF LUCK!