While Fortnite Season 5 has just begun, Epic Games has announced the Fortnite Summer Skirmish tournament. It will take place over a eight week period with $8 million in prize money. The Fortnite Summer Skirmish start date is July 14 with the first event being a $250,000 duos competition. Epic says participants will be "community creators and Fortnite players who have demonstrated their competitive prowess". Invitations for the inaugural Fortnite Summer Skirmish matches have been sent and Epic says fans should "stay tuned for more information" regarding qualifiers for an event.
This is most likely one of the initiatives linked to the $100 million prize pool Epic had announced towards Fortnite e-sports events such as the Fortnite 2019 World Cup. To put that into perspective, the year one prize pool for Fortnite is more than every major e-sport put together in 2017. This includes the likes of heavyweights like Call of Duty, Halo 5, Overwatch, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Dota 2, League of Legends, Rocket League, PUBG, and StarCraft to name a few. What this also means, is that Epic Games is serious about Fortnite's e-sports potential.
"Grab your gear, drop in and start training. Since the launch of Fortnite Battle Royale we’ve watched the passion for community competition grow and can’t wait to empower you to battle with the best. In the 2018 - 2019 season, Epic Games will provide $100,000,000 to fund prize pools for Fortnite competitions. 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," a post from the company stated at the time.
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