Epic Games reschedule World Cup Week 10 after pressure from Tfue and Cloak
Epic Games has moved week 10 of its World Cup qualifying event after pressure from top streamers like Tfue and Cloak.
The decision comes after it emerged qualifying was scheduled to take place on the same day as the annual Pro-Am tournament, effectively forcing popular players to choose between the two.
The semi-finals and final of the rescheduled qualifiers will now take place on June 20 and 21 respectively.
Fortnite isn’t just a massive success in its own right, but has made mainstream stars of many of the players in its burgeoning pro scene as well. Streamers like Ninja are watched by millions every day and even appear on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.
It makes sense then that Epic Games faced criticism when it was revealed that June’s Pro-Am Fortnite tournament - where pro players team up with a celebrity and compete - fell on the same day as week 10 of the World Cup qualifiers.
Week 10 represents players’ last chance to qualify for the Fortnite World Cup finals in July, meaning streamers that had yet to qualify for the World Cup and were attending the Pro-Am would miss out.
As Dexerto reports, both Turner 'Tfue' Tenney and Dennis 'Cloak' Lepore expressed their annoyance at the situation on twitter, with Lepore floating the idea of starting a petition to push qualifying back to accommodate the Pro-Am.
Tenney was less overt with his disapproval, but retweeted and agreed other players’ criticism in replies.
In an official statement on the Fortnite Competitive subreddit, Epic Games producer Matt Layman said:
“We are rescheduling the Week 10 Fortnite World Cup Online Open.
“The Semi-Finals will now take place on Thursday, June 20th. The Finals will take place on Friday, June 21st. The start time for each region will begin one hour later than the regular scheduled tournaments of previous weeks. You can expect to see the new dates and times listed in the game later this week.
“We will also be doubling the prize pool for Week 9 and Week 10, for a new total of $2,000,000 for each tournament. The schedule and timing for Week 9 will remain the same.”
And finally if you need any help with this season’s challenges, take a look at the list below.
Fortnite Season 9 Weekly challenges
You can check out all the Fortbyte locations here.