Epic Games’ Fortnite World Cup will return in 2021, provided that large-scale physical events are viable this time next year. Months passed this year without much word from Epic on its e-sports plans for 2020, which was expected to include the second Fortnite World Cup this summer.
This year’s World Cup tournament was canceled because of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, which continues to affect the entire gaming industry.
Physical events are still considered unsafe, which is unlikely to change in the coming months. While the Fortnite World Cup could have shifted to an online format like many of its e-sports counterparts, Epic said the “limitations of cross-region online competition“ prevent this from happening on its Fortnite Competitive Twitter account.
This news rather unfortunate for the community since the original event in 2019 was record-breaking, offering players a chance to earn a portion of the more than $30 million in prize money, with the solo champion Kyle “Bugha” Giersdorf earning $3 million and becoming one of the best battle royale players in the world.
Still, there will be many other Fortnite competitions, all held remotely. The Fortnite Champion Series will happen every season this year, including for the upcoming season 3, providing a space for the best pro players in the world to compete on a weekly basis.
For amateur players, cash cups will happen on a regular schedule. Anyone around the world who has two-factor authentication activated on their account can earn points toward monetary prizes in these online, open regional tournaments.
Epic Games is also helping third-parties host their own private tournaments whenever and wherever in Fortnite. The only stipulation being that they must be held online until further notice.
We heard the feedback?
DAMN OLD FORTNITE IS COMING BACK#ThankYouEpicGames
Also broadcasts will return on Saturday which is extremely good i love them so much!!! pic.twitter.com/R3wMGZDP37
— FlanzHQ (@FlanzHQ) April 30, 2020
Many of the official events this year will have broadcasts on the Fortnite Twitch and YouTube channels, beginning with the Fortnite Champion Series Invitational on Saturday, May 2, at 1 p.m. ET. Live-streamed events and a transparent plan are what the community has wanted for some time now, and fans quickly showed their gratitude by making “#ThankYouEpicGames” trend on Twitter.
With more than 3,000 tweets and counting at the time of publication, fans are showing their immense appreciation for the Fortnite developer clearly communicating its plans for this year’s events, even if the World Cup won’t be one of them.
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.
Gaming laptops and I have a complicated relationship. One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it. I was a broke college kid, and that was the best I could afford. So trying out high-end gaming laptops is always fun. But ASUS' ROG Zephyrus G14 is a lot more than a laptop that can run AAA games. It is portable, so you're not lugging around a 2.5kg machine everywhere you go. It is built well, none of that plastic chassis, and can even function as a normal laptop outside of just gaming.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.