- The Esports World Cup is once more set to return in 2025
- Fans will be able to follow a major new entry in the event with Free Fire set to return
- Team Falcons dominated the previous entry in the hotly-anticipated esports event
After finishing up earlier this year, the 2024 Esports World Cup seems to have been a resounding success, especially if you take into account the fact that a successor event has already been planned. And the latest game to carve out a niche for itself in 2025 is none other than Garena's Free Fire!
You'll likely remember that 2024's Esport World Cup: Free Fire Champions saw Team Falcon take home the gold. Their win also netted them an invite to the Free Fire World Series Global Finals in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil that year.
Free Fire will join fellow hit mobile multiplayer Honor of Kings in returning to Riyadh for another entry in the event, which was a spin-off of the Gamers8 tournament. Saudi Arabia has made major investments with hopes to turn the country into a major attraction for esports players the world over, with the Esports World Cup boasting huge prizes and more.
Golden lacquer
The major investment being heaped into the Esports World Cup is pretty clear from just a glance at the massive production values present in virtually all coverage of the event. Little surprise then that Free Fire and others are eager to return to Riyadh for another chance to show off their esports participants' talents on the world stage.
For the rest of us, of course, it remains to be seen how well another entry will do, and whether the novelty will wear off. You can't fault the event for glitz and glamour, however, the fact that the highly-touted World Cup tournaments still play second-fiddle to other global esports events for these releases does mean it feels a bit like a secondary event overall.
Still, it's certainly a far cry from the cancellation of the Free Fire World series back in 2021 during the nadir of Covid-19.
