The Covid-19 pandemic continues to impact esports across the globe. Following the announcement that there would be no Fortnite World Cup or Mid-Season Invitational in League of Legends, two more major events have been added to the list of cancellations or postponements — The International 2020 for Dota 2, and major LAN event DreamHack Summer.
In a statement, Dota 2 developer Valve announced a delay to their flagship tournament, stating that it was highly likely the event would need to take place in 2021 instead of its traditional November slot. They also stated that this impacts the professional DPC season, and are working on a way to restructure the format.
As the richest single tournament in esports, funded through sales of a Battle Pass, The International has long made its winners instant millionaires. The 2019 edition saw OG Esports win for the second time in succession, the first time a team has ever retained The International or claimed the title twice.
In a separate statement, Stockholm-based DreamHack announced that four events had been impacted, with each event rescheduled for new dates later in the year. These events are:
- DreamHack Valencia — originally due to take place July 3-5, it is now scheduled for October 8-12, 2020.
- DreamHack Dallas — originally planned for May 2020 in , it has now been moved into 2021.
- The flagship event, DreamHack Summer — originally pencilled in for June 2020 in Jönköping, Sweden, and then rescheduled to August 2020, this will now be moved to 2021.
- DreamHack Montreal — this event has also been moved from its original date of September 2020 to 2021.
Five other events are still planned to take place as normal, and at this time it is not known whether these will also be rescheduled.
- DreamHack Rotterdam — October 16-18, 2020
- DreamHack Hyderabad — October 30-November 1, 2020
- DreamHack Atlanta — November 13-15, 2020
- DreamHack Winter — November 27-29, 2020
- DreamHack Madrid — December 11-13, 2020
Several esports are impacted by the DreamHack cancellations, including the DreamHack Open Counter-Strike: Global Offensive series due to take place across the Valencia, Montreal, and Hyderabad events. These tournaments will now be moved online, and will still offer the same $100,000 prize pool per tournament and include an extra day's play to ensure all matches are still in a best-of-three format.
The company also announced that all DreamHack Starcraft 2 Masters and DreamHack Warcraft 3 Open events in 2020 will be moved online. A resdesigned ESL Pro Tour for Starcraft 2 and Warcraft 3 will follow. The new Northern League of Legends Championship will also see its finala moved to the Monster Energy DreamHack Studio in Stockholm, instead of taking place at DreamHack Summer.
The spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus continues to impact the esports and video game industries. Here are just some of the events cancelled or postponed as a result.
Header image courtesy of Valve.
