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The fifth season of the Arena of Valor International Championship (AIC) is underway. The tournament is an online affair with teams from the Asian region competing for a massive prize pool of $1 million.
Today, being the last of the championship, two teams from Thailand and Vietnam, namely Buriram United Esports and V Gaming, have made it to the finals and will shortly compete in a BO7 format to determine the winner of the 2021 Arena of Valor International Championship.
During the live broadcast, the 2022 esports roadmap for the title was announced. Speaking on the occasion, Brend Gottsman, Head of Global Esports Center at Tencent Games Global, revealed numerous details.
The AoV: World Cup, set for sometime in October 2022, will feature a massive prize pool of $10 million. This prize pool is the largest for a single event in the history of mobile esports. The World Cup will feature teams from all around the globe, and according to Gottsman, it will be the pinnacle of AOV esports.
He also revealed that Tencent plans to expand to the AoV esports scene around the globe, a process that will mean the addition of more regions to the ecosystem.
Earlier in September, the AoV World Cup was unveiled, and it was announced that Tencent plans to merge Arena of Valor and Honor of Kings (Chinese version of the game) for the mega global event. Initially, the prize pool was set at $8 million but was increased to $10 million.
The AoV World Cup will feature 16 teams from all major regions worldwide, including Europe, the Middle East, North and South America, and Asia.
The prize money of the Arena of Valor International Championship 2022, which has till date featured teams just from the Asian region, has also been doubled from next year, sitting at a massive $2 million.
Arena of Valor 2022 roadmap at a glance
Gottsman also elucidated the various stages of the 2022 esports ecosystem. Next year, the tournaments will be divided into five stages, as seen in the picture below.
Justin Lye, the Global Esports Manager at Garena, also gave out more information regarding the same by shedding a little more light on the order of tournaments for 2022.
Lye stated that Garena plans to scale up the Pro Leagues next year by inviting more teams and increasing prize pools for select regions.
From January to May 2022, Pro Leagues will run in multiple regions, and top teams from each region will advance to the AOV International Championship in 2022, which will take place in June.
After completing the AIC 2022, the second season of the Pro Leagues will run from July to September, paving the way for sides to enter the AoV World Cup.
A new localized point system has also been introduced for teams. They will be able to accumulate points throughout the year in their regional tournaments to earn spots for the Arena of Valor World Cup.
It would be intriguing to see how the new ecosystem develops globally and how well AoV fans around the globe accept it.
