Why isn’t Fortnite at the Esports World Cup 2025?

Fortnite is one of the most popular games, with an average player count that’s easier to compare to Steam as a whole than most other games. But its esports is sometimes a bit different, which is definitely the case if you’re looking for the Fortnite Esports World Cup 2025 event. Despite being a part of the line-up last year, Fortnite has been completely absent from the games this time. Not getting its time alongside the big titles of esports. What’s happened?

Fortnite has been a part of the Esports World Cup in the past. But the game isn’t going to return in 2025. With only a little time left before the World Cup, there’s still no word on Fortnite being included. It looks very likely that it has been dropped. While Epic is hosting their own Fortnite international events around the same time, there’s no big Fortnite EWC event this year. Why has the game been dropped?

Fortnite Esports World Cup 2025

Fortnite won’t be a part of the Esports World Cup in 2025. The games at the event are pretty diverse but the Battle Royale has been dropped. Last year, we did see a Fortnite tournament but it happened with a particularly strange format. This might have meant less interest in Fortnite for this year.

The FNCS events that make up the highest level of Epic’s Fortnite ecosystem are played in standard Battle Royale. The team size ranges, usually Duos or Trios. But the game is essentially played as we all know it. The Esports World Cup didn’t really slot into epic’s major system. While other games included the EWC as a part of their circuit, the 2024 edition for Fortnite was an entirely independent format. This might have contributed to the lesser-importance of the 2024 tournament. But given the bizarre set-up of the event, it was never going to be an easy fit.

The Esports World Cup Format and Fortnite

The Esports World Cup caters better to games which have an established team system, with a secondary prize for orgs winning multiple games at work. The EWC 2024 Fortnite tournament might have had a high-level prize pool, but its format wasn’t anything close to the normal game. It was played on a Creative map.

Rather than utilizing Battle Royale at all, the Fortnite EWC tournament was in a map called ESL Featuring Fortnite. An UnrealFN Fortnite map specifically made for this event. The gameplay was closer to a traditional shooter and didn’t really represent how Fortnite is typically played. The weirder format did allow a more standard team system to be used though, along with a group stage and bracket. Rather than just putting 100 great players in a lobby like we see in normal tournaments.

Fortnite EWC Never Got Epic’s Backing

Without official backing from Epic or a format that reflected Fortnite, this tournament was always going to be a bit limited. It’s fun to see a variety of events in Fortnite. But tournaments held outside of Battle Royale are much more limited. Even Reload could have been a decent replacement that allowed a more traditional style of play. But neither will be part of Fortnite Esports World Cup 2025.

On top of that, other titles brought their EWC events into their tournament structure. Making them part of their year or events. Whereas Epic hasn’t gone near any outside events. They farm the FNCS Majors out to Blast, and stay hands off otherwise.

With the tournament operating in this kind of format, not getting a Fortnite Esports World Cup 2205 event isn’t much of a surprise. Unless a way to make the events better represent actual Fortnite is found, the game doesn’t seem like a great fit for the Esports World Cup right now.