The Esports World Cup, an annual multi-title esports event, has continued its streak of announcements by confirming a Counter-Strike 2 tournament for its 2025 edition.
Following the announcement of several game titles over the past few weeks, the FPS title by game publisher Valve was officially added on December 6th, 2024. The format and schedule are yet to be revealed, however, this year’s event will feature a $1.25m (~£1m) prize pool.
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Counter-Strike 2 was part of Esports World Cup’s inaugural 2024 lineup, with 15 teams competing for the championship and a share of the $1.05m (~£0.82m) prize pool. Natus Vincere (NAVI) came out victorious in the last tournament, beating G2 Esports in the grand final and winning $400,000 (~£313,564) as well as 1000 club championship points.
The tournament racked up a peak viewership of 756,764 people, according to data platform Esports Charts, with an average of 238,003. In comparison, the peak viewership during the PGL Major Copenhagen 2024 was 1.8m, which peaked during the grand final between NAVI and FaZe Clan.
Before the start of the 2025 season, CS2 is currently hosting a Major in Shanghai, China, the first-ever Counter-Strike Major in Asia.
Other titles already confirmed in the 2025 EWC include Valve’s other flagship title Dota 2, Street Fighter 6, mobile battle royal game Free Fire, Honor of Kings, Ubisoft’s Rainbow Six Siege, as well as Activisions’ FPS titles Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 and Call of Duty Warzone. In particular, Activision’s Call of Duty League signed a multi-year partnership deal with the Esports World Cup Foundation.
The latter, alongside the tournament itself, has been criticised by members of the esports community due to its backing from Saudi Government’s sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund (PIF).
ESL FACEIT Group, which is the company that supports the creation of the tournament, is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Savvy Games Group, a game investment company owned by the PIF. Other companies in the investment portfolio include Hero Esports (formerly known as VSPO), the largest esports tournament organiser in Asia.
