ESL Katowice Royale Will Feature 'Fortnite' Streamers like Faze Tfue, Cloak and More

ESL announced on Thursday morning that the Intel Extreme Masters Katowice event in Poland will feature a Fortnite tournament. The "ESL Katowice Royale" will see 200 of the top Polish and international talent playing for a combined prize pool of $600,000. "Fans from all over the world know our Katowice event and bringing Fortnite as one of the world's largest games to them feels like a great fit," Sebastian Weishaar, Chief Product Officer at ESL, said in a press release.

The full event will take place over two weekends, February 23-24 and March 1-3. The first will take 100 of the best Polish Fortnite players and throw them into the battle bus for a chance at a victory royale and a chunk of the prize money. The next weekend will feature streamers and influencers from around the world, including Team Liquid's Vivid, Ghost Gaming's Bizzle and the famous FaZe pair, Tfue and Cloak. Players have the option to use either a PC or a PlayStation 4, as there will be 100 of each available.

ESL Katowice Royale will be streamed on Twitch "as well as several other channels that will be announced at a later date," a spokesperson said. In early 2018, ESL announced a partnership with Facebook, where they would stream their DOTA 2 and CSS:GO events exclusively on the social media network's gaming platform. Viewership was low and fans were angry, but the deal does run until the end of 2019.

Epic Games is collaborating with ESL to bring Fortnite to the Polish event. In order for a tournament to run the battle royale, they have to get permission and follow a strict set of guidelines put forward by Epic. In order for ESP Gaming to hold their WSOE 3 tournament in December, the tournament needed to have open qualifiers, adhere to Epic's strict quality control and deal with whatever changes the company might throw at them. That could mean players having to deal with a brand new item the day of the tournament that they had no experience using.