Lazarus become latest org to leave Fortnite

Lazarus Esports has become the latest esport organisation to leave Fortnite after releasing all ten members of their Fortnite roster.

The Canadian organisation entered Fortnite last year signing a number of players who had secured qualification for the Fortnite World Cup including the eventual Duo runner-ups Jaden “Wolfiez” Ashman and Dave “Rojo” Jong who won .2m at the event, as well as Nate “Kreo” Kou, who picked up 4th in the Solos event. All are now free agents.

Lazarus Esports are not the only organisation considering their position in Fortnite.

Ghost Gaming has released six players since January including Zander "thwifo" Kim, Daniel “Innocents” Rebelo, and Kovon “Assault” Richardson but retain the services of Aydan "Aydan" Conrad and Timothy "Bizzle" Miller among others.

Fnatic released their roster of Derman “Motor” Özdemir, Theo “Pr0v0kd” Guillemenot and Jacob “Verox” Gilbert on 14 February with CEO Sam Matthews laying the blame at the feet of Epic Games and their apparent disdain for esport organisations. 

"We speak with all publishers, work with them on driving esports. Epic doesn't feel it needs us." He said in Tweet on the day their Fortnite roster was released. "We still massively believe in the potential of Fortnite competitive. But I'm not sure Epic always feels the same way."

These organisations leave Fortnite at a time when there is currently no official tournaments announced, with Epic Games recently stating they are waiting to resolve "performance issues" in the game before they make a competitive announcement. 

This is a far cry from the position the game was in last year. Epic Games earmarked $100m for esport competitions and the Fortnite World Cup was one of the biggest esport tournaments ever, featuring a $30m prize pool and a guaranteed $50,000 for every player who qualified.

The last official cash tournament was the $400,000 Australian Open Summer Smash an invite-only event held on 1-2 February of this year.