Dota 2’s prestigious The International tournament will now be taking place in Bucharest, Romania in October, Valve announced on Wednesday. The event had been originally set to take place in Stockholm, Sweden in August, but Valve had announced in June it had started looking for other locations because of restrictions on esports events in Sweden.
The rescheduled event, which will be hosted in Bucharest’s Areana Nationala, will kick off on October 7th, with the Group Stage running through October 10th. Main Stage events start on October 12th, and the final match taking place on October 17th. Players will be competing for an eye-poppingly large prize pool of more than $40 million. Tickets aren’t on sale yet, but information about that “will come shortly,” Valve says.
The October event marks The International’s return after a one-year hiatus due to the pandemic. But Valve wasn’t the only company with big news about an esports event on Wednesday; the Call of Duty League announced that its championship weekend, which will be an in-person event at the Galen Center in Los Angeles, California, will take place starting August 19th.