Non-professional gamers will finally have the chance to win cash prizes in the next major Fortnite tournament.
Epic Games announced on Tuesday that its upcoming Winter Royale competition is going to be an open tournament with a prize pool of $1 million. This will be the first time any Fortnite players can compete for money as previous cash tournaments were limited to professional gamers and other invited players.
The Winter Royale, which is actually an expansion of the tournament feature that Epic Games launched last month, will be hosted through Fortnite’s in-game tournament system. It will also be a solo event, which means each player will be competing on their own.
The tournament is divided into two different stages: the qualifiers and the finals. Similar to past Fortnite’s in-game competitions, the Winter Royale qualifiers will put players into lobbies and give points for high finishes, eliminations, and the like. The players who have the highest points at the end of the qualifiers will then be verified, and those who are found eligible will proceed to the Winter Royal finals in their respective region for a chance to win cash prizes.
Sadly, the Winter Royale will only be open to players based in Europe and North America. But Epic Games said that they are planning on holding other location-specific tournaments in more regions soon.
The qualifiers in Europe and North America will both take place from November 24th to 25th. The European finals will then kick off on November 30th while the North American finals will begin on December 11th.