How 2025 shook up the Fortnite esports scene

The Fortnite Championship Series (FNCS) took major strides in 2025, as esports fans gathered to watch the highest level of play for one of gaming’s most popular battle royale titles.

FNCS is the premier esports scene for Fortnite, where players across the world compete in an annual circuit for huge prize pools. This year alone, the total prize pool for 2025 amounted to $8m (~£6m).

2025 also saw drastic competitive changes as Epic Games shifted from Duos to a Trios format. With each team equipped with one extra player on the field, champions fell, and underdogs were able to take the spotlight.

From the top esports personalities that shone in the Majors to an epic finale at the Global Championships, Esports Insider reflects on Fortnite’s competitive highlights in 2025. 

Every Fortnite competitive season consists of three Majors, which serve as regional qualifiers for the FNCS Global Championships, the season’s crowning event. 

Major 1 will always be a highlight event in the FNCS calendar as it provides a huge insight into the state of Fortnite’s competitive scene. The results of Major 1 set the expectations for strategies and potential winners in future events.

In hindsight, FNCS 2025 Major 1 Europe was monumental for the entire competitive season. The top four teams at the Global Championships were composed of European players, many of whom kickstarted their 2025 run at the Major 1 Europe Grand Finals.

Running in February as an online event, Major 1 Europe Grand Finals featured the region’s top 33 trios as they competed for its $816,000 (~£612,000) prize pool and for one of two spots in the world championship. 

The tournament was ultimately won by BIG’s Taylor-Petrik ‘vic0’ Gatschelhofer, XSET’s Harry ‘Veno’ Pearson, and AIGHT’s Felix ‘Flickzy’ G. The trio proved to be an unstoppable force throughout the Grand Finals, claiming four victory royales out of the 12 games played, ending with 673 points* in total.  

However, the most noteworthy trio consisted of Gentle Mates’ Egor ‘SwizzY‘ Luciko and Andrejs ‘Merstach‘ Piratovs, alongside Aleksa ‘Queasy‘ Cvetkovic from Twisted Minds.

Despite placing fourth in the competition, the Major 1 Europe Grand Finals marked the beginning of their 2025 journey, a year-long storyline that ended with the players making history. 

*FNCS distributes points based on placement and per kill. For example, for the Majors and the Global Championship, first, second and third receive 65, 54, and 48 points, respectively. Every kill is four points.

The FNCS 2025 Pro-Am saw 20 of the biggest Fortnite creators pair with esports players for a huge $500,000 (~£375,000) prize pot.

Taking place at the University of Southern California’s Galen Centre in May, the tournament featured well-known Fortnite streamers, including FaZe Clan’s Rani ‘StableRonaldo’ Mach, Nicholas ‘Nick Eh 30’ Amyoony, and Jack ‘CouRage’ Dunlop, among others.

However, the Pro-Am was won by Australian caster and content creator Shaun ‘AussieAntics‘ Cochrane and FNCS 2024 Global Champion Peter ‘Peterbot’ Kata of Team Falcons. Out of the six games played, the duo placed fourth in game two and even scored a victory royale in the fourth game, ending the series with 71 points in total. 

This event was significant as it marked the return of FNCS Pro-Am after several years of absence, with the last tournament held in 2019. Additionally, it was the first time the Pro-Am event was being advertised as being a part of the FNCS ecosystem, merging the creator and competitive worlds.

This would prove to be an effective move by Epic Games, as it became the second most popular FNCS event in 2025 in terms of peak viewership, according to Esports Charts.

The results mark a shift in how Epic Games is treating the competitive scene. As a result, fans may see creators feature more frequently in future FNCS seasons to grow the scene’s viewership.

While many FNCS events took place this year, Fortnite was a surprising omission in the Esports World Cup 2025 line-up.

Surprisingly, the Esports World Cup Foundation’s CEO, Ralf Reichert, also told Saudi Arabian television channel Al Ekhbariya, following the decision, that the game ‘doesn’t have a huge competitive system.’ 

Fortnite’s absence and Epic Games’ lack of a statement left some fans disappointed with the Esport World Cup Foundation’s decision and comments. However, others were unsurprised by its exclusion, some even sharing Reichert’s perspective surrounding Fortnite’s lack of competitiveness after its 2024 event.

Fortnite was featured in the 2024 Esports World Cup, which saw various FNCS players, such as Peterbot and Swizzy, compete for organisations like Team Falcons and Karmine Corp. However, it didn’t utilise the traditional battle-royale format. Instead, it created a 4v4 team shooter format by ESL with objective-based modes.

The shift was met with mixed responses from the community, failing to break 100,000 peak viewership during its broadcast. All in all, the tournament fell short in comparison to other major FNCS events that took place that year.

However, in December 2025, Epic Games announced a partnership with the Esports World Cup Foundation, bringing Fortnite back to Riyadh for 2026. This time, the game will emulate FNCS more closely with the $1.5m (~£1.12m) Reload Elite Series, a faster-paced 40-player large battle-royale with respawns enabled. However, the event will still remain separate from the FNCS.

The new series will conclude with a world championship at the Esports World Cup 2026, offering an additional $1m (~£749,300) prize pool.

For many competitive Fortnite fans, the biggest highlight of the year will always be the FNCS Global Championship, where the best teams from each Major compete to decide the new champion.

Thousands gathered at the Lyon Décines venue in France to watch 33 of the top teams compete for a prize pool worth over $2m (~£1.49m). Additionally, the tournament winners would make history as the first trio of world champions in the FNCS competitive ecosystem.

Despite the event featuring former world champions like Peterbot, Major winners such as Veno, and popular esports personalities like Cody ‘Clix’ Conrod, it was the aforementioned trio of SwizzY, Merstach, and Queasy that walked out of France victorious. 

Their Global Championship run was defined by the trio’s jaw-dropping start in the Grand Finals, where the team landed a hat-trick of victory royales in games two to four. This start established an early lead that carried the team throughout the competition, earning 697 points in total by the end of the series  — 47 points ahead of second place and over 100 points ahead of third.

Each player in the trio became a global champion for the first time in their careers, shattering expectations after defeating tournament favourites. The FNCS 2025 Global Championship showcased how switching the format from Duos to Trios shifted the skill level across the board, allowing lesser-known players to rise up the competitive ladder.

At the end of this year, Epic Games has revealed what fans can expect in the next FNCS season, which comes with various format updates. 

One of the biggest changes is the shift from Trios back to Duos, the original format used for the FNCS 2023 and 2024 season, forcing all teams to readjust. After seeing how significant an impact the shift to Trios had on the competitive scene, the return to Duos could redefine the conversation for the best Fortnite players in the world.

In addition to the Pro-Am and Global Championship, Fortnite will also see the inclusion of two more LAN’s. The FNCS Mid-Season, serving as a traditional battle royale tournament, and the Road Elite Series, ending with the championship event in the Esports World Cup. 

It’s been some time since Epic Games has expanded the scene so drastically, showing Epic Games’ confidence in its performance and longevity as an esports scene, and proving that Fortnite can be competitive.

The new Fortnite mobile circuit also began back on December 5th, 2025, and will run alongside the standard FNCS scene in 2026. Featuring a $1m prize pool, the mobile title will utilise the Blitz Royale game mode for future events. Epic Games is committing more resources to the mobile edition of the battle royale after multiple years of legal challenges against Apple, seeing Fortnite’s return to the US iOS store nearly five years after leaving the platform.

2026 is shaping up to be one of the biggest and most crucial years in Fortnite’s competitive history. After being on the back foot since 2020 in terms of peak viewership, the variety of ways to experience Fortnite esports could jumpstart the ecosystem to become a dominant esport. But only time will tell whether Fortnite can stand alongside the most popular esports games.