The Esports World Cup (EWC), the multi-title esports event organised by the Esports World Cup Foundation, has announced that publisher Garena’s mobile Battle Royale game Free Fire will be making its return to the Esports World Cup for 2025.
The esports title had a $1m (~£788,600) prize pooled tournament at the previous EWC that took place in July 2024. Free Fire will return to Riyadh next summer, though further details of the tournament are yet to be made public.
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The inaugural Esports World Cup: Free Fire tournament held its final on July 14th. The event was won by Saudi Arabian esports organisation Team Falcons with Buriram United Esports player Ratchanon ‘Moshi’ Kunrayason winning the MVP award.
The winner of this year’s event secured a spot in the largest tournament of the Free Fire competitive calendar, the Free Fire World Series Global Finals which ended on November 24th in Brazil. It has yet to be announced what the prize pool for the 2025 EWC Free Fire event will be and if the winning team will qualify for any other events.
The Free Fire tournament at the EWC in 2024 was the most viewed Free Fire event of the year at the time with a peak viewership of 471,483, according to Esports Charts. However, that record was recently unseated by the Free Fire World Series Global Finals 2024 with a peak viewership of 731,970.
The Esports World Cup has already announced that Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 will feature at the 2025 event. The newly released Call of Duty game will replace Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, which was part of the competition’s 2024 edition. Alongside this, Call of Duty: Warzone and Honor of Kings will also feature at the event.
The Esports World Cup Foundation, the organiser of the event, is backed by the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund. As such, the multi-title event has faced criticism from teams and the community over Saudi Arabia’s human rights record.
