Epic Games Launches $8 Million ‘Fortnite’ Summer Skirmish Series

By Stefanie Fogel

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Epic Games is hosting eight weeks of “” 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.