Blizzard announces $50,000 creator tournament in new World of Warcraft battle royale mode

Game developer Blizzard Entertainment has announced a content creator tournament in Plunderstorm, a battle royale gamemode recently released in World of Warcraft.

The tournament, called Plunderstorm Creator Royale, will see 60 popular streamers compete in pairs for a $50,000 (~£39,600) prize pool on March 30th.

Plunderstorm is a new gamemode released on March 16th that brings battle royale to World of Warcraft, a long-running leading MMORPG.

The new mode is a completely new genre for World of Warcraft and comes with distinctly different mechanics than the base game. The mode is available to any player with an active World of Warcraft subscription.

The creator tournament will take place in Plunderstorm’s duos mode, with pairs of creators competing against each other across the single-day event. 

Blizzard said that after five matches have been played, duos at the top of the leaderboard will be eligible to win the whole competition if they place first in the next match. A free-for-all match will be held if there’s no winner by match eight, the victor of which will be crowned champion.

The event will be broadcast live from Blizzard’s headquarters in California, but participants will be streaming their perspectives on Twitch on their own channels.

The creator lineup features notable content creators both from the WoW community and beyond. Highly popular variety streamer (and owner of esports team Disguised) DisguisedToast will be joined by Asmongold, CruellaDK, Nobbel87, Crendor, and many more.

The Plunderstorm gamemode was released unexpectedly on March 16th to much surprise to the WoW community. The gamemode is a noticeable departure from the traditional formula of content that Blizzard usually releases for the game.

First released in 2004, World of Warcraft has been a massively popular and successful MMORPG, but its subscriber numbers have declined in recent years compared to the game’s peak in the early 2010’s.