Short for electronic sports, eSports are a form of competition that sees individual players and teams of players competing against each other in various major video game tournaments. Three of the best eSports games you can play in 2022 are Fortnite, League of Legends, and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.
Some of the other popular eSports games right now include Dota 2, Arena of Valor, Rocket League, Apex Legends, Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege, Call of Duty, FIFA, Valorant, and Free Fire. The video game industry’s eSports tournament is now a billion-dollar global industry that is witnessing steady growth. It amasses huge audiences that can watch the action either online or at actual land-based gaming venues that host some of today’s biggest eSports events.
Fortnite
Fortnite is one of the most popular video games ever made. It was first released in 2017, and it’s brought to you by Epic Games – one of the industry’s leading video game and software developers. There are three different game modes available in Fortnite, which include Fortnite: Battle Royale, Fortnite: Creative, and Fortnite: Save the World, and each mode shares similar gameplay and mechanics.
Fortnite: Creative gives you as a player complete freedom to craft unique worlds from your imagination and battle areas. Fortnite: Battle Royale sees up to as many as 100 players battling against each other to be the last person standing, and Fortnite: Save the World is a survival game where you must defend the tower. In this epic shoot ’em-up game, up to four players have to fend off zombies and defend certain objects by setting traps and building fortifications.
Although Fortnite: Battle Royale and Fortnite: Creative are both free to play, Fortnite: Save the World is a pay-to-play game. The in-game currency in Fortnite is known as V-Bucks, in which players can purchase a random selection of items, such as cosmetic items and skins (a variety of different outfits for your avatar characters), as well as different character models, battle passes, and more. Players can also purchase loot boxes, which appear in the form of a llama-shaped piñata, and open up to randomly reveal some of these add-ons.
The most successful of the three different Fortnite games is the Battle Royale version, which recently drew in an impressive 125 million players in under 12 months while at the same time earning hundreds of millions of dollars each month through the purchase of V-Bucks. Even some of the richest gamblers in the world have been known to play the game. Fortnite as a whole has generated billions of dollars in revenue across, and it’s available across multiple platforms and devices, such as Android, Nintendo Switch, Windows, macOS, Playstation 4, Playstation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
It’s also a multi-industry-award-winning game, having landed several coveted honours, such as the People’s Voice Award for Best Multiplayer/Competitive Game at the 2018 Webby Awards, and the Best Ongoing Game award at the Game Critics Awards in 2018 and 2019. Fortnite also won the eSports Game of the Year award at the 2019 Golden Joystick Awards.
League of Legends
League of Legends, which is also known by many as League, is a multiplayer online battle arena video game that was developed by Riot Games. It’s free to play. However, it’s also possible to purchase customisable items for your character. It was first released for Microsoft Windows in 2009 and then for macOS in 2013. This popular fantasy-themed game sees two teams of players battling it out in a player-vs-player format.
Both teams must try and occupy their opponents’ areas of the map and destroy their ‘Nexus’ (enemy base) while at the same time defending their base in their own half of the map. Each player’s character has a unique set of moves/weapons and abilities, and as you progress, you can become more powerful by earning gold and building up XP (experience points). It’s also possible in League of Legends to purchase items to help defeat your opponents and destroy their base.
The game has won multiple awards, and it was nominated for the best eSports Game at The Game Awards in 2017 and 2018, and it won the Outstanding Live Graphic Design award for the 2017 world championship.
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is a first-person multiplayer shooter game that’s brought to you by Valve and Hidden Path Entertainment. It first arrived in 2012, and it’s compatible with Microsoft Windows, macOS, Linux, Playstation 3, and Xbox 360. It’s an objective-based game with two opposing teams – the terrorists and the counter-terrorists. The terrorists have to try and plant a bomb or take hostages, and the counter-terrorists have to try and prevent them from doing so.
It’s a free-to-play game, but just like the other two games mentioned above, you can also purchase in-play cosmetic items for your characters. The game may not have won as many industry awards as Fortnite of League of Legends, but it has been nominated for some of the most coveted awards on multiple occasions, and it remains a firm fan favourite for millions of online gamers around the world.
