Game developer and publisher Epic Games has announced the launch of Fortnite’s NA-Central server region.
Starting next season, NA-Central servers will run all Fortnite tournaments in North America.
Players will still be able to view and queue up for upcoming competitive events while set to the NA-East or NA-West server regions, but the event will be routed to the NA-Central servers, Epic Games stated.
In addition, any prizing for NA-East and NA-West in future battle royale seasons will be combined into one pool for North America. This includes qualifications through multi-round tournaments such as Victory Cash Cups, FNCS Majors, and the FNCS Global Championship. North America will have one single champion for all competitive events for the first time.
For now, Epic Games hinted at the possibility of hosting a few competitive events on the NA-Central server region to test server performance and iron out any bugs. For the rest of the season, tournaments in North America will still generally be hosted on the NA-East and NA-West servers.
Epic Games worked with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to deliver this new server region located in Dallas, Texas. The NA-Central server region is using AWS Local Zones in a bid to provide a similar experience to the one players are used to having on the NA-East and NA-West servers.
AWS has also partnered with Riot Games in a bid to ‘transform’ the way the latter’s esports content is created and distributed in the cloud.
Last month, Epic Games announced its 2023 roadmap for the Fortnite Champion Series (FNCS), which has a total prize pool of $10m (~£8.33m). ‘Major’ tournaments have been introduced, and the Global Championship will take place in Copenhagen, Denmark later in the year, as Epic Games once again ramps up its support of Fortnite esports.
