Epic Games officially turn Fortnite into a high school and college sport

Epic Games and software company PlayVS have officially revealed Fortnite’s first officially sanctioned series of competitions for U.S. high school and colleges.

The series will be the first time Epic has officially sponsored high school esports, and is the first time Fortnite’s college players will see a set format with a national championship at the end of the season.

PlayVS is a software company that provides leagues, scheduling, and infrastructure for high school esports in America – according to its website.

PlayVS has previously partnered with Rocket League developer Psyonix to hold competitions, but the duo with Epic will be their first time operating at the collegiate level.

The high school competitive series will be spread over six conferences, one for each time zone of the United States: Eastern, Central, Mountain, Pacific, Alaska, and Hawaii.

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For the college set, there will only be one conference for the entire country, and each one (high school and college) will crown a winner at a final championship event.

High school registration for varsity competition starts February 17, and sign up for the collegiate circuit starts Feb. 24.

Both high school and college players will compete in an eight-week season, starting on Feb. 26 for the former, and March 4 for the latter.

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Players will compete each week as duos in private lobbies against other duos from the same conference over a period of two hours, or a maximum of seven games.

In these matches, teams will acquire points each week according to the scoring formula provided by Epic Games and Play VS:

Scoring format 

Victory Royale: 10 Points

2nd – 3rd: 7 Points

4th – 7th: 5 Points

8th – 12th: 3 Points

Each Elimination: 1 Point

Tiebreakers will be determined in the order presented here: (1) total points scored; (2) total Victory Royales in the session; (3) average eliminations in the session; (4) average placement per match in the session; finally (5) total seconds survived across all matches; and finally (6) a coin flip.

-Epic Games and PlayVS

Top four teams in each conference, each week, will earn a playoff spot up to a total of 32 teams, with another 18 teams who were the highest-scoring non-automatic qualifiers joining them in the playoffs.

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It’s clear Epic isn’t shying away from expanding Fortnite esports following the success of the 2019 World Cup, and it will be very interesting to see how the new high school and college competitions work out.