Fortnite 's kicking off a different kind of season with its Summer Skirmish series, offering competitors the chance to take home part of an $8 million prize pool across eight weeks of events. If the Showdown modes and the E3 celebrity Pro-Am were developer Epic's way of dipping its toes into the eSports scene, the Summer Skirmish is how it cannonballs right in. And the events start Saturday. $8,000,000 in 8 Weeks.The Fortnite #SummerSkirmish begins this Saturday! https://t.co/dnba0wrAqq pic.twitter.com/mjJcZxkmuMJuly 11, 2018 See more Some of the game's most prominent duos will compete to take home a cash prize of $250,000, with the extra wrinkle that the paint on Fortnite season 5 will still be fresh at the time (including the inevitable cascade of Fortnite map changes ). A quarter of a million is quite a sum of money, and unlike the Pro-Am it will all go directly to the winners rather than a charity of their choice. Still, it's only 1/32nd of the total prize pool - there will be plenty more to win in the weeks ahead. Epic says the Summer Skirmish will bring "community creators and Fortnite players who have demonstrated their competitive prowess" together to face off for the cash. Yes, that means your favorite Fortnite streamer will probably appear at least once. This inaugural event is solely invitational, with all of the slots already filled by pre-selected competitors, but Epic says it will share more information for how all kinds of players can qualify for future Summer Skirmish events. The game format will likely change across the competition, as well, so don't worry if you're not a fan of Duos. Personally, I'd like to see how a Final Fight Teams of 12 match would go with a bunch of well-coordinated squads (instead of randos who run off and die alone), but maybe that's asking for disaster.<doc-sep>Earlier this year, Epic Games announced its first foray into official competitions for Fortnite, and it's finally kicking off with the Summer Skirmish series. The competitions will run for eight weeks, awarding participants with a total $8 million in prize money. Events start this weekend (July 14) with a $250,000 duos competition. As hefty as it sounds, $8 million is a pretty small portion of the $100 million Epic has put up for the 2018-2019 season. While Epic previously stated that anyone can participate in the first year of competitive Fortnite, it says that "in order to jumpstart the competition, invitations for the inaugural Summer Skirmish matches have already been sent." Expect a lineup featuring big entertainers and upcoming competitive players. With Fortnite Season 5 starting early tomorrow morning, my bet is that an evolution of the replay viewer will allow us to watch the events live and in-engine is on the way to accompany Saturday's duos competition. Either way, I'll definitely be watching.<doc-sep>Epic Games announced that it will host the new Fortnite Summer Skirmish series, a tournament with a combined prize pool of $8 million, which will be awarded across eight weeks of competition. According to Epic’s announcement of the series, it is designed to bring together community members, content creators and Fortnite players who have “demonstrated their competitive prowess.” The exact format of each competition and the competitors will change week to week and have a variety of prize pools attached to them. The first of these competitions is going to be a Duos mode event this weekend that will have a prize pool of $250,000. The competitors for this first event have already been chosen by Epic and notified via invitation. While this is the way participants were chosen this time, Epic’s announcement made it clear that there will be ways to qualify for future events. This first competition will begin this Saturday, July 14, though we don’t have any further details beyond that. This is the first word we have heard from Epic on a specific competition, but we did know that esports have been in the company’s plans for Fortnite for a while. Back in May, Epic announced that it would be starting its esports venture with Fortnite in 2018 by putting together a series of tournaments with a total prize pool of $100 million. Then, at the E3 Pro-Am, the company announced that it would be hosting a Fortnite World Cup competition that would have open qualifying. While this tournament series doesn’t seem to be specifically linked to the World Cup, it is likely that it’s a part of Epic’s 2018 tournament plans and that the $8 million is a part of Epic’s larger competitive Fortnite prize pool.<doc-sep>
Epic Games is hosting eight weeks of “Fortnite” competitions called the Summer Skirmish Series, it announced on Wednesday, and it’s awarding $8 million in prize money. The Summer Skirmish Series starts this weekend with a $250,000 Duos competition comprised of community creators and “Fortnite” players. The format and competitors may change from week-to-week, Epic said. Earlier this year, Epic announced it’s providing $100 million in prize pools for “Fortnite’s” inaugural 2018-2019 season. It will split the money between multiple events at different levels of competition worldwide, culminating with the first-ever “Fortnite” World Cup in 2019. The championship will mainly focus on solo and duo play, but Epic said there will be plenty of opportunities for competitive squads as well. Qualifiers begin this fall. “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,” it said at the time. Epic has already sent invitations for the inaugural Summer Skirmish matches. It will release more information on how “Fortnite” players can qualify for an event in the near future. “Fortnite” is currently one of the biggest online games with over 125 million players. It recently released a new Playground mode for people who just want to chill and build stuff. Epic is also teasing the start of its next season with a number of mysterious events, including an in-game rocket launch and temporal rifts, papier-mâché llamas across Europe, and a hamburger mascot in the desert.