Updated on 18 December 2024
Everyone has heard of Fortnite. The battle royale game that took the world by storm. The video game developed by Epic Games has generated billions of dollars in revenue. And like all other popular battle royale games, they have their own competitions and tournaments. The most recent, and probably the biggest one is called the Fortnite World Cup 2019. This took place on July 26 to 28 in New York City at the Arthur Ashe Stadium with a prize pool of a whopping $30 million.
The famous battle royale game begins with about 100 players dropping off on an island with only pickaxes as their weapon. Throughout the duration of the game, it’s all up to the players to gather their own weapons and items in order to fight and defeat the other players.
Although it sounds pretty similar to other battle royale games, one thing that sets Fortnite apart from the rest is that they have to build their own forts (which is why it’s called FORTnite). Apart from weapons, the players can also gather wood, brick, and metal in order to create these walls or quote on quote forts. This is the main attraction for players since not a lot of battle royale games give you the option of hiding and protecting yourself from enemies intentionally.
The developer Epic, first announced that they would be having a Fortnite tournament sometime in June last year. They originally planned to host weekly tournaments at the end of 2018 and have the finals in 2019. But a change of plans landed the qualifiers for the world cup to start in April.
For players to qualify in the finals, they had to compete in either single or duos weekly tournaments in order to accumulate points. Those with the most number of points were invited to the tournament with the chance to take home the Fortnite World Cup Prize of $3 million and the title of “Best Fortnite Player in the World”.
So in the solo/duo tournament, the teams and players have to take part in a total of six matches. Each must accumulate as many points as they can per game in order to get the winning spot in the competition. The duo teams would have to split the 3 million with each other meanwhile solo winners get to keep their prize all to themselves.
On Sunday, July 28, a young 16 year old, blew everyone away and won the 3 million dollar first place prize. Although competitors came from far and wide from different countries, it was none other than Kyle “Bugha” Giersdorf who stood atop them all.
And it wasn’t because of some dramatic turnaround at the last minute. No, Giersdorf was already way ahead of the competition since the first start of the day. He won the first six games consecutively and proceeded to accumulate more eliminations granting him the lead spot. Then came the last game, which, according to CNet, was impossible for him to lose.