We wanted to share today an update on the upcoming Rainbow Six Esports competitions for the remainder of 2020, as well as part of 2021. While we have recently taken difficult decisions to switch live events to online competitions, we continue to explore options that would allow us to bring back physical events while ensuring everyone’s health and safety. We are dedicated to offering the best experience possible for both our professional teams and our passionate community. While hosting an audience at a Rainbow Six esports event is still excluded for the time being, we are looking at increasing the frequency of LAN events with teams competing on-site.
Please find below an update on our situation for each upcoming esports event:
Regional Finals 2020
In order to adapt to the requirements of our adjusted events roadmap, we are updating our plans for the Regional Finals as follows:
European League Finals: They will now happen from January 15th to 17th 2021 and will see the four best teams – based on the final rankings of the European League, aggregating the results of the 2 stages of the Season 2020 – squaring off in a 100% online tournament to become the very first European League Champions. More information will be shared by the region later on.
Asia-Pacific Finals: The Asia-Pacific Finals will be split into 3 fully online Finals (North Division, Oceania, and South Asia) from January 8th to 10th. More information will be shared by the region soon.
North-American League Finals: The Canada Division Finals and relegation match will be held online from December 11th to 13th 2020. More details will be shared by the region in the coming weeks for this event as well as updates regarding US Division Finals
Latin-American League Finals: The Brazil Division Grand Final will be held as a LAN event following strict sanitary safety measures on November 29th. Following the semi-finals that happened this past weekend, Mexico and LATAM South Divisions promotion/relegation matches and Grand Finals will be held online from November 23rd to November 28th.
Six Invitational 2021
We are thrilled to announce that the fifth edition of the Six Invitational will happen in late February 2021. We have all been longing for a clash of the regions, a truly international tournament to determine which team and region is the best this season. All of us at Ubisoft are excited and hard at work to offer the best experience possible for our pro teams and viewers. The Six Invitational 2021 will gather 20 teams across the 4 main regions of the Rainbow Six Esports circuit, competing offline, in Europe and following strict sanitary safety measures. For safety reasons, there will be no audience on site.
As unveiled during the Six Invitational 2020, the competition will now feature 20 teams battling it out to be crowned World Champions. 16 teams will qualify for the Six Invitational 2021 based on their ranking in the Global Points standings, while four additional slots – one per region – will be up for grabs through Open Qualifiers that will be held in December 2020.
Get ready, because the registrations for the Open Qualifiers will kick off on December 2nd!
More information on the Six Invitational 2021, its sanitary protocol and the regional Open Qualifiers formats will be shared in the coming weeks.
May and August Six Majors 2021
Our teams are exploring all options. We will be able to share more information in 2021.
Rainbow Six World Cup
Announcing the Rainbow Six World Cup last September was an exciting moment for all esports teams here at Ubisoft. This competition will be a unique opportunity for local Rainbow Six communities around the world to share their love, pride and unconditional support to the team that will represent their country or region on the worldwide stage.
Considering the uncertainty around the evolution of the pandemic around the world in the coming months, we felt we needed to take a step back and assess what we wanted to offer to the wider Siege family with the World Cup. Looking at learnings from other entertainment industries and considering that the World Cup is an independent layer of competition with no impact on the regular Rainbow Six Esports circuit, we took the difficult decision to postpone the Rainbow Six World Cup to 2022.
This will allow us to work on the best version of the World Cup we all want to see, with an audience cheering and chanting for their team at a physical event.
We thank you for your patience and understanding. The next step of the project remains the National Committees selection process in each participating country and region, which will resume in 2021. Stay tuned.
Make sure to follow @R6esports and all of our regional accounts, @R6esportsNA, @R6EsportsEU, @R6EsportsAPAC and @R6EsportsLATAM on Twitter to get the latest news on the new Rainbow Six Circuit! For a behind the scenes look, be sure to follow us on Instagram. You can catch all the Rainbow Six Esports action at twitch.tv/rainbow6.
