Twin Galaxies and Daybreak Games are coming together to launch a 20-week professional league for H1Z1: King of the Kill. The H1Z1 league will start out with fifteen teams competing over the span of twenty weeks. 2018 will see the finale of the league in a culmination of the inaugural league championship.
Developer Daybreak Games is investing in assistance from gaming analytics company Twin Galaxies. The companies previously collaborated on a primetime television event for H1Z1.
H1Z1: King of the Kill was the first major battle-royale style video game. In 2015, Daybreak Games held the first invitational featuring this style of competition.
The premise of the game revolves around an arena-style death battle. Each round, 100 players parachute onto a map location and proceed to pick up loot and try to eliminate any other players. The player last standing is the winner.
Facing stiff competition from games like PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds and Fortnite, winning the genre will be an uphill climb for H1Z1. Still, H1Z1 boasts a dedicated fan base who will likely help make this league a success. As an early access title, the game still has plenty of technical difficulties that need to be worked through before the start of the season.
No organizations have created or announced teams yet. Rumor has it there will be no buy-in to join the league as there is in the new Overwatch League. A revenue-sharing model will also be in place.
To be considered for a place on one of the teams, players should focus on grinding up the ranks. Teams will likely draft top players. The minimum salary that players will earn is rumored to be near $50,000.
In order to make the games more exciting, players will receive points based on their kills and other factors. This will hopefully stop players from camping until the end of the game so that spectators constantly have something exciting to watch.
