$15 million Fortnite Winter Royale 2019 Duos event announced

Epic Games have announced the return of the Winter Royale Duos event as the next competitive tournament in Fortnite Chapter 2: Season 1.

With the Chapter 2: Season 1 Fortnite Champion Series coming to a close, the competitive community didn’t know what to expect next from Epic, or when for that matter.

On December 5, the developers revealed that the second major competitive event of Chapter 2 will be Winter Royale 2019 – a series of Duos tournaments to be held in December.

Altogether, this event will offer $15 million in prizes, making it the second-most lucrative Fortnite competition behind last summer’s World Cup, which offered $40 million between the qualifier rounds and finals.

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This will be the second year in a row that Epic are hosting the Winter Royale. However, last year’s tournament offered only $1 million in prizes and was mired in controversy due to the incredibly-overpowered Infinity Blade sword weapon still being in the game at the time.

UPDATE (Dec 9, 2019) – Epic Games have announced the full details about Winter Royale 2019, including the format and scoring, prize breakdown, and more.

This is the second December in a row during which the Winter Royale tournament will be played.

Fortnite Winter Royale 2019 details

Winter Royale 2019 will feature three separate tournaments played on three different days from December 20-22. Each tournament will have its own scoring format and $5 million prize pool, bringing the combined total prize money offered throughout the event to $15 million.

All server regions will be allowed to participate. More importantly, the tournaments will all be platform-specific, meaning console players won’t be forced to play against those on PC, and will be open to players of all ranks.

This is in stark contrast to the way Epic have been hosting the FNCS competitions, making them available only to those who achieve Champion status in the Arena mode.

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As for everything else, such as details about the actual in-game events and rules, Epic have said that they will be releasing more information “soon.”

At least Fortnite players won’t have to worry about the Infinity Blade during this year’s Winter Royale event.

Here is the full announcement from Epic Games, as provided in their December 5 blog post:

Winter Royale is back in 2019 and bigger than ever! Three separate Duos tournaments on three different days in December with $5M prize pools each day. 

All server regions will take part in platform-specific Duos competition that will be open to any rank of player. The in-game events and rules will be posted soon for additional details.