Fortnite Competitive Chapter 2 Season 8 Details

Fortnite competitors,
With the conclusion of the FNCS this past weekend, so too does the Chapter 2 Season 7 competitive season end. Congratulations to all our FNCS Champions! Wield the Axe of Champions often this upcoming season.

Season 8 Arena Preseason

We’ll be continuing the Arena Preseason in Season 8. We’ll be monitoring new items and features and re-evaluating already existing items that may come back into the competitive loot pool. Arena Hype will carry over from Season 7 and will reset on September 28. To give players a chance to test out and play with the new seasonal changes in a meaningful way, we’re also adding a Preseason Warmup Test tournament, which will simulate a single FNCS qualifier weekend on September 24 - 26.

Season 8 FNCS Begins October 14

While we made very few changes to FNCS in Season 7, we’ll be making several changes in Season 8. This FNCS season, there will only be two Qualifiers, followed by one week of competition including Semi-Finals and Finals. Let’s break it all down.
Note: The dates for the Middle East Region will be one day earlier than what’s listed here.

Qualifiers (October 15-17 & October 22-24)

We’ve cut back on the number of Qualifiers and increased the number of teams that directly qualify for Finals. Now, the top 5 teams (previously top 3) from each Qualifier will skip the Semi-Finals and advance straight to the FNCS Finals. 

We feel this is a meaningful change as there is typically a clear points dropoff on the Leaderboards of each Qualifier after the top 5, and fewer Qualifiers allows the best teams that have directly qualified to the Finals to not miss out on pinnacle competition for a longer length of time. A shorter FNCS season is also necessary to accommodate for the additional end of year FNCS event and other competitive offerings.

Semi-Finals (October 28-29)

Semi-Finals will also work slightly differently this FNCS season. We took a close look at previous season’s Reboot Rounds and really enjoyed how they played out in regions that had the full 6 matches after disbands. Achieving a Victory Royale in any tournament match is a pinnacle Fortnite achievement. We’re excited to deliver more Victory Royale focused action this season!

Now, we’ll get a bit more sweaty as we only take the top 66 (previously top 99) teams in Series Points (2 Heats) in each region. Day 1 will consist of four matches in each Heat. The top 4 teams in each Heat after Day 1 will advance to the Finals. The remaining teams from each Heat will be seeded on their performance and reshuffled into new Heats for Day 2.

Day 2 of Semi-Finals will essentially function in the same way as the Reboot Round from past seasons. There will be 6 games in each Heat (12 total games). The winners of each game will advance to the Finals.

As the Semi-Finals progress across the two days with these changes, all participating teams are never out of the running! The map and contested POIs will dynamically open up as more and more teams advance out after each match, leading to a more natural crescendo for players and fans. Teams’ in-the-moment early game decisions matter more during the duration of these new Semi-Finals.

Finals (October 30-31)

The FNCS Finals will remain the same as it has for the entire year with one caveat. Two days of competition with 6 games each day. The top performing team at the end of Day 2 will be crowned the FNCS Champion. However, unlike in past FNCS Finals, the top 3 teams from each region’s Finals will NOT receive automatic advancement to next season’s FNCS Finals. A new year means a fresh start for everyone.

Prize Pool

The prize pool will stay exactly the same as the Chapter 2 Season 7 FNCS prize pool. Here’s how the $3,000,000 shared prize pool is broken down per region.

Prize Pool per Region

FNCS Grand Royale Finale Event

Mark your calendars! The FNCS Grand Royale, with $5,000,000 on the line, will be held over the course of a two-week span starting on November 12. That’s just two weeks after the FNCS Season 8 Finals. Any eligible player who has made a single-lobby round of FNCS (Round 4 of an FNCS Qualifier, Semi-Finals, or Finals) this year may  make a trio for the event. We’ll have more information on the rules and format later in the season, so be on the lookout for that blog.

Arena Changes

We noticed the changes we made to the scoring system last season allowed players to get to Champion League even faster than before. With Champion League as the qualification metric to most of our competitive events, we want the achievement to hold more value. We’ll be making more adjustments this season to make it more challenging to get to Champion League so quickly.

We can’t point to a date just yet, but our intention is to explore a Fill option for Arena  at a later point in Season 8. Once this test goes live we’ll let you know.

Other Competitive Offerings

We’ll continue our regular cadence of Cash Cups and LTM tournaments in Season 8. Trios Cash Cups and Trios Hype Cups on Mondays, new Duos Hype Cups on Fridays, and Solo Cash Cups on Sundays with LTM tournaments sprinkled around. DreamHack Cash Cup Extras are scheduled for October 6, November 3, and December 1. With our tight schedule for Season 8, the NAE and EU DreamHack Open Ft. Fortnite is scheduled for October 7-10. More information on that event will be made available on DreamHack’s website at a later date.

Console only events

Following the FNCS Finals, console players will have the opportunity to earn a share of the $250,000 prize pool in the Console Champions Cup on November 5-7. The Cup will run just like it has the past two seasons.

In addition to the Console Champions Cup, we plan to hold console-specific tournaments where players can go head-to-head against each other on the same console machine. We’ll share more details about our plans for those at a later date.

Other Offerings

There’s still more to come that we aren’t quite ready to talk about - including a new series of Outfit Cups. Expect a packed schedule this competitive season and we’ll be sure to inform you of all the tournament offerings as more details are ready to be shared.

Thank you for making this competitive year one of the best yet, and we look forward to seeing you compete in Chapter 2 Season 8!