Fortnite introduces new tournaments and competitive events for 2021

The Fortnite 2021 competitive update has been announced and it looks like Epic is aiming to host new kinds of competitive events.

These new events include a rebranding of the platform cup which will include a shoutout on the official Competitive Fortnite Twitter page for the winner, in addition to new LTM Tournaments meant to bring a competitive edge to some of the more unique game modes.

With most of the world still enduring lockdowns, Epic is hoping these adaptations will allow competitive Fortnite to have a greater variety of content for players to enjoy.

A new year means new updates to what you can expect from Competitive Fortnite! Bragging Rights, LTM Tournaments, and more - read it all in our latest blog: https://t.co/Yi88riUi8s

— Fortnite Competitive (@FNCompetitive) January 6, 2021

Competitive Fortnite makes its home online

Anyone who followed or participated in the competitive Fortnite events from last year should be comfortable with this year’s events. The Friday Nite Bragging Rights are fundamentally identical to the Platform Cups, just with some further integration with the official Fortnite Twitter. The Bragging Right Cups will start on January 8th, with Epic stating their intent to run them every Friday thereafter.

Keeping up with the weekly events, Epic has also introduced a cross-platform cup which will take place every Monday starting on January 11th. Both the cross-platform and platform separated cups will be trios events, making Trios the main way for players to compete this season.

The last weekly cup introduced this season are the LTM Tournaments, an updated form of the Wild Wednesday Cups. These cups have been moved to Mondays and will be a way for Epic to experiment with new and alternate competitive formats and game modes.

Finally, this announcement is rounded off with Epic reminding players that they will also scatter in fun and unique tournaments throughout the season which will feature more game modes.

What will competitive Fortnite look like in Season 5

2022: com tab

— Adamx (@AdamxYouTube) January 6, 2021

It’s no surprise to see Fortnite Season 5 focusing heavily on trios, as trios have proven to be the competitive format with the greatest staying power and the lowest degree of randomness. Perhaps the strangest decision is to have both the cross-platform and platform cups be so similar as there doesn’t seem to be much reason to have both.

Fortnite players tend to strongly prefer the platform separation as balancing the game between both PC, console, and mobile players has always been a difficult task. Any amount of console assistance usually irritates PC players while lacking any assistance makes it difficult for console players to keep up at all.

This might have made more sense had the cross-platform cup also been a different format, such as duos or solos, but perhaps the interest here is to see how much the platform separation matters during trios games.

At the very least, Epic has implemented ways to introduce new and unique concepts into competitive Fortnite.