Epic Games Not Planning In-Person Fortnite Events for 2021
Fortnite's Chapter 2 Season 5 released this past week, and it brought several new changes for the game including its own subscription service. Following Fortnite's Season 5 launch, Epic Games released a news update yesterday detailing upcoming events in the foreseeable future.
To close out 2020, Epic Games' news update from the Fortnite team says it will continue to support online competitive events for the game. However, there will not be any in-person events in 2021, at the time of this writing. The main reasoning for this is to ensure the safety and health of staff and players during the ongoing pandemic.
According to the update, Epic Games will not be holding physical events like the Fortnite World Cup. For now, Epic Games will only continue to host online competitive events for Fortnite and Epic Games expressed hope that there might be a return to such "grand events" in the near future.
The news falls in-line with many gaming and pop-culture public gathering events getting cancelled or moved online in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. That includes PAX Unplugged 2020, the Game Awards, Tokyo Con, New York Comic-Con, and more. They were either cancelled and rescheduled for next year or became virtual events to be hosted during the remainder of the year.
However, Epic Games' development team is still making big live Fortnite events such as the recent Galactus invasion. There will also be Fortnite Championship Series (FNCS) events next year, and the party size will be standardized to trios as a constant rule. There will also be some alterations to the scoring and qualifications format that will vary by season, according to this recent announcement. Moving forward, the development team intends to provide more stability and consistency for FNCS.
The next FNCS for Season 5 begins February 4, 2021. The development team will also be keeping an eye on Fortnite's Season 5 Bars system, aiming to see how the mechanic performs in competitive playlists and collect player feedback. The team is discussing further plans on how to better implement the mechanic into competitive matches without negatively affecting gameplay.
There will be more online competitive tournaments for the game in 2021. According to the news update, the team is working on a schedule of new activities for next year including weekly tournaments, some unique events, and Creator Cups. Even though there won't be any physical events in 2021, there should be plenty of online Fortnite events for players to compete in.
Fortnite is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
Source: Epic Games
Post a Comment