Epic Delays Fortnite Tournament To Address Performance Issues

Yesterday, Epic Games announced that it will be delaying Fortnite tournaments involving cash prizes until all the major performance issues with the game have been fixed. “Our goal is to improve performance before kicking off any cash prized competition,” the company said in a statement.

Although it is a great step toward fixing all the issues that players and Fortnite's servers face, it is also saddening that we won't be hearing anything of the next Fortnite World Cup or qualifying events any time soon. The first Fortnite World Cup was hosted last July in New York. The World Cup consisted of 10 online qualifying tournaments that spanned over a few months, with a hefty $30 million prize.

The latest season for Fortnite dropped on February 20, which also introduced several fixes and tweaks to improve performance. As of the latest update, an area of the map is currently guarded by armed and coordinated NPCs, which could end up causing issues in PvP scenarios. The game has also shifted to an advanced version of Unreal Engine's Chaos Physics engine. While announcing this shift, Epic also stated that this transition could cause some unexpected issues.

Additionally, Epic could also be exercising caution amid the global coronavirus outbreak, which has caused many gaming events, tournaments, leagues, and conferences to be either canceled or postponed.

League of Legends has also canceled its Pro League in-person event in China and the event is now shifted to an online-only format. We may never know if Epic is taking a similar plan of action, but there's always a possibility. It is also important to note that last year's World Cup was entirely online.

However, if Epic is aiming toward improving performance and fixing issues in its popular Battle Royale, it is actually a very smart decision in our opinion. Nevertheless, we'll keep you posted as soon as Epic has additional information regarding the tournaments.