Recent reports have shown that the esports scene in 2025 has already been booming in viewership and prize pools.

It shows that while some games have wasted no time in hosting events, other’s have steadily declined in both commitments and viewer engagement.

According to Esports Charts, several games are already hosting events watched around the world and awarding millions in prizes.

To probably no one’s surprise, League of Legends (LoL) once again tops the charts in terms of peak viewership for esports games in 2025. On February 13th the game saw nearly 2m viewers at one point during the LCK Cup 2025.

In second place we have VALORANT, with peak viewership of over 1.3m during this year’s Masters Bangkok Grand Finals. Despite having fewer ongoing tournaments than LoL, it has offered a richer prize pool overall at $750,000 so far.

Counter Strike 2 (CS) is the last of the big three, with the highest number of ongoing tournaments at 10. As result, it has accumulated a staggering $3.7 million in total prize pool money. The highest prize pools were awarded at both PGL Cluj-Napoca and IEM Katowice 2025 at $1.25 million each.

Within Esports Chart’s top 10 esports games of 2025, three of them are classified to be on mobile platforms.

Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, a 5v5 MOBA on iOS and Android that recently launched in China, ranks fourth, surpassing Apex Legends, Fortnite, and Dota 2.

Its Snapdragon Pro Series Season 6 APAC challenge finals attracted a peak viewership of over one million. 2024 was also successful with 167 tournaments, including the $3m EWC X MLBB Mid-Season Cup.

Another notable mobile game to highlight is Honor of Kings, another 5v5 MOBA game. Though not as successful as LoL, it boasts a larger total prize pool of over $300,000. With 85 tournaments in 2024, 2025 could prove to be even bigger.

Beyond the top 10, there are a few surprise titles that have not seen as much activity so far this year.

Marvel Rivals, the latest hero shooter craze, has topped Overwatch 2 in prize pool and viewership in 2025 so far.

Where Overwatch has offered $65,000 and has a 147,000 peak viewership, Marvel Rivals has given away $200,000 and over 175,000 peak views.

Other noteworthy titles ranked between 20-11 include Call of Duty, Rocket League, Street Fighter and Free Fire.

Though with this year’s Esports World Cup introducing several games in its catalogue this year, a resurgence in viewers may be on the horizon for several of these games.

ATOX has been disqualified and banned from PGL Counter-Strike events amid an investigation from the Esports Integrity Commission (ESIC).

As a result, the Mongolian esports organisation is unable to play in the Asian closed qualifier for the upcoming PGL Bucharest tournament.

PGL confirmed ATOX had received a ban on March 6th, 2025, citing a ‘provisional suspension from ESIC’ as the reason behind the decision. The tournament organiser is a member of ESIC alongside other event organisers such as BLAST.

In addition to PGL, ATOX is also banned from competing at the BLAST Open Lisbon tournament due to the suspension.

ESIC is yet to share the exact reasoning behind the suspension, but it is rumoured that ATOX is under investigation for suspected match-fixing while competing in Season 20 of the ESL Pro League.

“ESIC internally stated that the investigation may last for several weeks,” revealed Chinese Counter-Strike 2 commentator Yunqing ‘Searph‘ Hu in a social media post.

“The organiser of the next competition for this team said that they have learned about the ongoing investigation and are ready to prepare a plan for the team to be banned at any time,” he added.

ESIC aims to ensure that integrity within the esports industry is maintained and has an impressive track record of taking action against those committing actions that compromise integrity.

In March, the Commission has issued a three-year ban against Ukrainian Counter-Strike player Ilya ‘Ganginho‘ Chernychenko after he was in violation of betting and corruption regulations.

With details on the ESIC investigation still unknown, it’s unclear how long ATOX will be unable to compete in tournaments operated by members of the Commission.

Depending on the severity of the offence, it could be several years before the organisation returns to the top level of Counter-Strike esports.

For now, ATOX won’t be competing in PGL or BLAST tournaments for the foreseeable future.

Counter-Strike 2 veteran Ladislav ‘GuardiaN‘ Kovács announced he is officially retiring from pro play at the age of 33.

GuardiaN is regarded as one of the all-time greats in the CS scene, boasting a career spanning over two decades of professional play and coaching. But leaving CS2 esports was not a hard decision for him.

2025 has seen several high-profile esports personalities stepping back from the CS2 scene, with teams such as Cloud 9 and Endpoint pausing activities related to the game.

On March 4, 2025, GuardiaN shared online that he would no longer pursue CS2 as an esports professional to the surprise of many long-time fans.

In an interview with BC.GameEsports, he explained his reasoning behind his retirement.

He said: “The decision was not hard to make. When you spend half of your life competing in tournaments and flying around the world, you get burnt out. It was time to focus on something else in life.

“I’m not sad, I’ve done everything I could in esports. I’ve been to Majors, I’ve been to Major finals, I’ve won tournaments, I had amazing teams. I’ve done it all I don’t have a Major trophy, but that’s not all it takes to be happy.”

GuardiaN first began his venture into esports back in 2006, earning over $800,000 in prize money throughout his entire career.

In 2012, he had brief stints with Virtus.pro, which recently entered the Marvel Rivals esports scene. From there, his aptitude for using the in-game AWP sniper rifle became more well known, and his popularity skyrocketed.

He joined the Ukrainian esports team, Natus Vincere (NAVI) in 2013 and established himself as one of the best AWPers in the world. He contributed towards NAVI reaching multiple Major finals and helped them win S-tier events like ESL One New York 2016.

GuardiaN was even part of FaZe Clan between 2017 to 2019, reaching the grand finals of ELEAGUE Boston 2018. This was the closest he came to winning a Major trophy.

Many may recall his iconic one-versus-five showdown against Fnatic at IEM Katowice 2018, one of his favourite plays that helped cement his legacy as one of the game’s greatest snipers.

However, recent years have seen his activity come to an abrupt halt. Despite returning to NAVI, he was eventually benched as the organisation introduced a revamped team.

He then joined BC.Game in June last year as a CS2 coach, and saw brief action as the team’s designated AWPer in November. However, in January, 2025, the organisation announced that he too would be benched.

Altogether, GuardiaN has appeared in 14 majors, won 12 S-tier LAN titles, and has been awarded eight MVP’s.

There are plenty of top CS2 players to watch out for in 2025, but GuardiaN will no longer be one of them — at least for the esports side of things.

What lies in store for the now-retired CS2 pro remains uncertain, but he has expressed interest in pursuing streaming and content creation.

He said: “I’m not the youngest anymore. It was time to focus on something else in life. Some streaming, or some business. I still love CS, I’m happy to do that.”

PGL has revealed the 12 teams receiving direct invitations to its Counter-Strike 2 (CS2) event taking place in Bucharest, Romania.

The event emanating from Romania’s capital city takes place from April 6th to April 13th, 2025, featuring the best teams from around the world competing for $200,000 (~£157,794) of a $625,000 (~£493,156) prize pool.

The invited teams for PGL’s upcoming CS2 tournament are as follows:

The majority of the teams invited to the event form part of the top 12 teams from March’s Valve Regional Standings (VRS). Notable exclusions include NAVI and MOUZ, which are ranked sixth and eighth.

Interestingly, MOUZ won PGL Cluj-Napoca, the most recent Counter-Strike 2 event hosted by the tournament operator. It’s unclear why the team won’t be attending at this time.

In total, PGL Bucharest 2025 will feature 16 teams competing. The remaining four teams will be determined by online qualifiers across Europe, the Americas and Asia.

Instead of PGL Bucharest 2025 taking place in an arena or stadium, the matches will happen at PGL Studios, a dedicated in-house space for the organiser to host esports events.

For PGL, 2025 has started on the front foot. The Cluj-Napoca event recorded over half a million peak viewers during its Grand Final and the tournament organiser is already looking ahead for future tournaments.

In December 2024, PGL unveiled its 2026 tournament calendar with tournaments taking place in Romania, Kazakhstan and Serbia throughout the year.

PGL also announced an event in 2027, but BLAST has an event taking place at the same time. The clash will force teams to decide which to compete in. Meanwhile, lower-ranked teams may have an opportunity to compete in a top-tier CS2 event due to the spread.

HEROIC has revealed insights into its financial performance last year, claiming profitability for the first time.

According to a post on HEROIC’s LinkedIn account, the esports organisation achieved ‘record-high’ revenue and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA).

HEROIC named high sponsorship income, ambitious agency work and revenue generated through player transfers as the main drivers of its financial success. Whilst HEROIC has celebrated its success, exact financial figures have not been revealed.

Last year, the organisation secured partnerships sportswear brand Joma and blockchain and cryptocurrency platform Polkadot. Following a multi-year deal with esports online crypto betting platform Thunderpick, the two companies launched the ‘Path to Pros’ Counter-Strike 2 tournament in June 2024.

“We’re incredibly proud of last year’s success, and very excited for our success to continue into 2025 through delivering excellent value to partners, producing top content and achieving competitive excellence,” shared HEROIC via LinkedIn.

The post also highlighted the esports organisation’s competitive successes in 2024, including a runner-up finish at the Fortnite Global Championship as well as third place at the Esports World Cup.

Moreover, HEROIC reached a notable achievement in its first year of competing in Dota 2 with its victory during the $1m (~£789,000) PGL Wallachia Season 2.

Interestingly, HEROIC’s profitability claims come after the company experienced major financial struggles throughout 2023.

In March 2023, the organisation raised a NOK 10m (~£780,000) funding round to cover its day-to-day expenses and ensure HEROIC’s roster could continue competing.

However, HEROIC announced that it needed at least NOK 80m (~£6.2m) through 2025, with NOK 10m needed before the summer of 2023. In May of the same year, the publicly traded company accepted a cash offer from Krow Bidco AS to acquire all outstanding shares at NOK 2.0 (~£0.15) per share.

Founded in 2016, Norwegian esports organisation HEROIC competes in VALORANT, PUBG Mobile, Fortnite and Dota 2. The company is primarily known for its Counter-Strike 2 roster, which recently qualified for the Intel Extreme Masters (IEM) Dallas in May.

HEROIC is not the only esports organisation reporting impressive financial records this year. Last month, French organisation Karmine Corp claimed profitability for the second year in a row.

Valve has released significant changes to the Valve Regional Standings (VRS) model, a system that ranks Counter-Strike 2 (CS2) teams and is tied to invites for sanctioned esports events.

Changes include how forfeits contribute to team rankings and when tournament data is recorded and added to the standings.

The changes, made on February 24th, 2025, note that forfeits will now hold the same value as any loss that occurs during online and offline matches.

Prior to Valve’s adjustments, any forfeits didn’t contribute to the results. This provided some teams with a loophole to give up in matches and avoid their rankings being impacted.

In addition, tournament data that is recorded won’t count until the final match of the event has finished. The change means that teams competing in events that go over the VRS ranking update time frame won’t be negatively hampered.

Tournament data recording notably caused issues during the 2025 season. German esports organisation GamerLegion released a statement claiming it had missed out on a top 12 invitation to the BLAST Open Lisbon event while competing at IEM Katowice due to prize money not being taken into account. This is due to the fact the organisation was still active in the event.

Another notable change is that instead of needing 10 matches for a team to be eligible for the VRS, the Valve VRS changes now require teams to compete in five matches.

The last part of the Valve VRS changes involves how prize money is calculated. Club revenue that event organisers such as ESL FACEIT Group and the Esports World Cup use are now integrated into the structure.

Club revenue is separated from tournament prize money in several ESL-operated tournaments and is used as a means to support organisations participating in their events.

Women’s Counter-Strike 2 (CS2) circuit ESL Impact is back for its seventh season from February 26th, 2025 until May 25th.

Since its launch in 2022, the tournament has been at the forefront of women’s esports, providing teams with a chance to compete within a dedicated ecosystem.

Following the likes of Imperial Valkyries qualifying for IEM Katowice, Season 7 of ESL Impact is set to be the biggest season yet with teams from three regions looking to earn a place in the season finals. Here’s everything you need to know about ESL Impact Season 7.

A total of 28 teams from Europe, North and South America will compete in the group stage where eight teams will earn a place at the offline final taking place at DreamHack Dallas from May 23rd to May 25th.

The Group Stage of ESL Impact Season 7 consists of a single round-robin format, with all matches being a best-of-three (BO3).

For Europe, the team that tops each of its two groups will earn automatic qualification to the finals. Meanwhile, the second and third-place teams will play in decider matches to see which organisation makes it to LAN.

Both the North and South American divisions will follow the same round-robin format but feature eight teams competing in a single group. The top two teams from those groups will qualify for the final. There are no decider matches for North and South America.

For the Finals, the format sees the eight qualified teams split into two groups of four. Using a GSL format, the top two teams from each group earn a place in the Playoffs, a best-of-three, single-elimination bracket.

In accordance with Valve’s tournament operation rulebook, ESL FACEIT Group has invited teams that competed in Season 6 to join its new season. For the remaining spots, open qualifiers have been utilised.

For Europe, BIG EQUIPA, DMS, Let Her Cook, Ninjas in Pyjamas, and defending champions Imperial Valkyries will all be returning to the competition. Meanwhile, AKA HERO KAJO, Akuma, CS2News Ladies, Eco Warriors, nomercy, Prototype Blaza and Spray and Slay earned their places through open qualifiers.

In the North American division the likes of FlyQuest Red, Lumen and Supernova Comets qualified via Season 6. These teams will compete against blackmold, Ghost Gaming, MEGA JUNERS, Nouns Fe and Nyx Empire.

Finally, South America’s SEES Atrix eSports, FURIA and MIBR return for ESL Impact Season 7. Bounty Hunters, Brave Bears, MESSITAS, thekillaz and QUEM SAO ELAS round out the teams competing in the region.

ESL Impact Season 7 will feature a $250,000 (~£198,068) prize pool split across online and LAN matches:

In addition to the prize pool, teams can earn an additional $250,000 through ESL FACEIT Groups’s Club Incentive initiative. Based on their rankings, teams can earn additional income by creating long-form and short-form video content surrounding their journey through the tournament.

ESL Impact will be streamed across its Twitch and YouTube channels. In addition, all matches will be shown on FACEIT Watch, ESL FACEIT Group’s dedicated platform.

The integration with FACEIT Watch aims to allow viewers to tune into the action from multiple perspectives and create personalised broadcast experiences.

PGL Cluj-Napoca 2025, won by German esports organisation MOUZ, has recorded peaking viewing figures of over half a million during the Grand Finals.

The Counter-Strike 2 tournament operated by PGL hit a peak viewership of 539,700 on February 23rd, 2025, according to esports data platform Esports Charts.

The viewership figure was recorded during the Grand Final between MOUZ and Team Falcons. The final match saw the German esports organisation take a 3-1 victory and $400,000 (~£316,476) in prize money.

PGL Cluj-Napoca becomes the third most-viewed Counter Strike 2 event of 2025. The most-viewed event of the year so far is ESL FACEIT Group’s IEM Katowice, recording a peak viewership of 1.2m.

In terms of the teams watched, Team Falcons tops the charts with 5.5 million hours. The Saudi Arabian organisation is ranked 9th in the February VRS.

Tournament winner MOUZ is the team with the second-highest amount, with 4.8m hours. MOUZ is one of 24 teams competing in Season 21 of the ESL Pro League beginning on March 1st, 2025.

For the tournament organiser, Cluj-Napoca is the 20th most-watched event. PGL’s highest peak viewing figure is from Counter-Strike’s Stockholm Major from 2021. The event recorded 2.7 million viewers during its Grand Final.

The next PGL CS2 event is set to take place in Bucharest, Romania in April. Sixteen teams will take part in the tournament, featuring a $1.25m (~£989,381) prize pool.

Outside of Counter-Strike, PGL continues to cement its position as one of the biggest event organisers in the world. In February, it secured a two-year deal with Cyprus-based gambling company 1xBet.

The event organiser is also planning its 2027 event calendar. After initially announcing a CS2 event in Kraków, Poland, the city cancelled it hours after the announcement due to another event taking place at the TAURON Arena in January.

ESL Pro League Season 21 is bringing the 24 best Counter-Strike 2 teams in the world to Sweden next month for a massive prize pool and hopes of being the first to reach the Intel Grand Slam.

Spanning across 16 days of action from March 1st to March 16th, the squads will compete for a share of the $400,000 (~£317,680) prize pool, with the winner taking $100,000 (~£79,420) at this Tier 1 tournament.

With the 24 invited teams confirmed, here’s everything you need to know ahead of the ESL Pro League S21.

ESL Pro League Season 21 will take place at the ESL Studio in Stockholm, Sweden. This location is replacing Saint Julian’s, Malta, which hosted the three previous ESL Pro League editions. This is due to a long-lasting partnership with GamingMalta coming to an end.

ESL Pro League is considered an S-tier event, with the win counting towards the Intel Grand Slam, which awards $1,000,000 to the first team that wins four events organised by ESL during a window of 10 consecutive events. Among all the winners of the ESL Pro League and IEM, Natus Vincere (NAVI) and Team Vitality are currently in first place, tied with two wins each.

Aside from the new venue, the ESL Pro League has also undergone other big changes given Valve’s newly enforced tournament operation guidelines, which previously caused a semi-franchised partner team model to dominate the scene.

With the new guidelines, organisations will qualify for the event via their Valve Global Rankings, instead of getting direct access as partner teams. Additionally, Valve has opened up qualification for Tier 2 teams through the ESL Challenger League and reduced the total number of participants from 32 to 24.

The competition is split into two stages plus a playoff bracket. Eight teams will go directly to Stage 2, based on the VRS standings.

In the first stage, from March 1st to the 5th, the 16 invited teams will compete in a Swiss stage format featuring best-of-three matches. The opening matchups will be decided through baseline ratings, with live ratings being implemented in the following Swiss rounds. This will be similar to Elo ratings, as lower-seeded teams will earn more points if they beat higher-rated teams.

After each round, teams will be paired based on their updated ratings, with the restriction that no rematches will occur. At the end of the Swiss, the top eight teams will advance to the next stage.

The same Swiss format will be repeated in Stage 2, with the top eight moving on to the Playoff Stage. Matches will take place between March 7th and March 11th.

In the Playoffs, the teams will compete in a single-elimination bracket starting on March 13th. For quarterfinals and semifinals, matches will be best-of-three, while the Grand Final will be best-of-five and take place on March 16th.

The eight squads that have gone directly to Stage 2 were the top teams in the VRS Global standings as of January 6, 2025:

Team Falcons have been invited after acquiring the majority roster of HEROIC. To replace the departing players, HEROIC have acquired several players from Sangal Esports, who qualified via ECL Season 48 in Europe.

Team Liquid, on the other hand, was put into Stage 2 after FaZe Clan declined their invite. FaZe’s decline to skip ESL Pro League Season 21 is mainly due to the packed tournament schedule for the 2025 season. Its absence has led to GamerLegion being invited.

The other 16 teams are a combination of other top teams from the VRS global standings as well as winners of the ESL Challenger Leagues across Europe, North America, Asia, South America, and Oceania, as well as the winners of the ESL Challenger Atlanta and Katowice:

The first team to watch in the upcoming ESL Pro League is none other than Team Vitality. While they are the second team in the standings, the team has recently won IEM Katowice, beating Team Spirit in a dominant series. Mathieu ‘ZywOo‘ Herbaut ended up earning his 21st MVP award, tying NAVI’s Oleksandr ‘Olehovych ‘S1mple‘ Kostyliev

For Team Spirit, this will be the perfect opportunity to get revenge, considering the team has won several competitions they have taken part in the past two years.

A major roster shuffle was made after the Shanghai Major and the start of 2025, even affecting some of the top teams like G2, which lost Nikola ‘NiKo‘ Kovač who went on to join Team Falcons. Alongside the Heroic core of René ‘TeSes’ Madsen, Damjan ‘kyxsan’ Stoilkovski and Abdulkhalik ‘degster’ Gasanov, the Saudi Arabian team is a must-watch at the tournament.

Aside from these three teams, NAVI is also expected to be a strong contender for the title as they were close to matching Team Spirit in the last IEM, especially on Dust 22, losing the round 14-16.

Unfortunately for fans, it has been confirmed by ESL that there won’t be a live audience for the competition, as all games will be played in private.

The ESL Pro League S21 will be broadcast live on Twitch, as well as on ESL Counter-Strike’s YouTube channel. For those unable to tune in live, matches will also be available to watch on-demand for free via YouTube.

All 16 qualified teams for Intel Extreme Masters (IEM) Dallas 2025 have been confirmed following the final European Qualifier match between HEROIC and Astralis.

HEROIC has become the last roster to qualify for the $300,000 (~£237,000) Counter-Strike 2 (CS2) competition taking place from May 19th-25th.

IEM Dallas marks the third international IEM tournament in the 2025 CS2 competitive season. Held at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center, the Dallas event follows IEM Katowice, won by Team Vitality and IEM Melbourne in April.

The full list of teams invited to IEM Melbourne was already confirmed earlier this month.

Teams could secure a spot at IEM Dallas through Valve’s new VRS leaderboard system and regional qualifiers.

Eight rosters qualified based on their regional VRS scores as of February 3rd. However, VRS leader Team Spirit, as well as top performer NAVI, will not attend IEM Dallas. The full list of teams includes:

Outside of the invited teams, organisations had to first fight through regional qualifiers based on their VRS ranking. Additionally, Open Qualifiers gave smaller organisations a chance to compete in IEM Qualifiers against higher-ranking rosters within their region.

The European Qualifier saw the top five out of 16 total rosters advance to IEM Dallas. Meanwhile, qualifiers in North America, South America and Asia featured four teams each, only offering qualification to their respective winners.

In addition to the regional VRS ranking, Valve also ranks CS2 teams on a global VRS leaderboard. As of February 3rd, Team Spirit, G2 Esports, TheMongolZ, Vitality and FaZe form the top 5 across all the game’s regions.

The highest-ranked esports organisation in the global leaderboard is G2 Esports in second. Meanwhile, the lowest-ranked team is BC.Game in 99th. BC.Game remarkably qualified for IEM Dallas by winning ESL’s Open Qualifier and finishing second in the European Qualifier.