There’s been a ton of Fortnite esports news this week, including several UK-based stories. Here’s a quick rundown.
West Ham, Celtic and other clubs get skins added to the game
From January 23rd, Fortnite players will be able to purchase different male and female football outfits in-game, with 23 football clubs represented altogether.
These include Premier League sides Manchester City, Wolves and West Ham, plus Scottish side Celtic, among others around the world such as Juventus and Schalke.
Each Outfit can be swapped to any of the 23 football clubs we’ve teamed with from around the globe. The full list is on the Fortnite website.
Pelé Cup and air punch emote launch
Epic Games has partnered with Legendary Brazilian superstar, Pelé, to bring his iconic celebration into the game from January 23rd.
There’s also the Pelé Cup tournament, starting January 20th, with top scorers able to win a customised signed shirt.
Manchester City and FaZe Clan set to host Fortnite tournament
Manchester City is collaborating with Epic Games FaZe Clan to hold the FaZe City Cup featuring Fortnite on January 21st.
The open-to-public event will be the first Fortnite tournament held by the Club and FaZe Clan and will see the top 50 duos pairings (top 100 players) earn early access to the Manchester City skin and special in-game emotes.
This activity builds on Man City’s partnership with FaZe Clan, which has created new experiences for fans of both football and esports since it began in 2019.
Throughout the partnership, City footballers and esports players have teamed up with FaZe Clan talent to create content and launch limited-edition product collaborations, as well as hosting each other at events in Manchester and Los Angeles.
FNCS prize pool raised to $20m for 2021
For 2021, the Fortnite Champion Series (FNCS) will have $20m in prizes – up from $17m in 2020 – and the format has been tweaked.
There will be four FNCS seasons in 2021, each with a $3m prize pool, plus mid and end-of-year competitions bringing together the best-performing FNCS players in each region to compete for $8m in prizes.
There’s more info on the Fortnite website.
Guild Esports announce new Fortnite player and content creator
UK organisation Guild Esports have announced the signing of Denmark-born Fortnite player Anas El-Abd, the third addition to its expanding Fornite roster.
Anas is a four-time Cash Cup Winner and has been a finalist in both the FNCS Grand Finals and Dreamhack Finals five times, his tournament winnings totalling over $96,000.
The 18-year-old joins following the signing of Nikolaj ‘Flikk” Frøslev and Henrik (Hen) Mclean, earlier in November and December respectively last year.
Guild have also announced the signing of Gee Nelly as their first resident content creator.
Gee joins Guild with a huge social following of over 515,000 across Twitch, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and TikTok. As an award-winning streamer, Gee has previously worked with top YouTube channels such as Sidemen and collaborated with other creators like Talia Mar.
You can watch videos of Guild’s Anas announcement and Gee announcement here.
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Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
