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The ESL Premiership, the UK’s longest-standing esports tournament in operation since 2015, will play host to the Hado Invitational at the Insomnia 68 gaming festival this weekend.
On Sunday April 17th 2022, the first AR game to be featured in the ESL Prem tournament ecosystem will debut with 12 teams competing for their share of a £1,000 prize pool.
Hado (not to be confused with League of Legends support player Hadow) is an Augmented Reality (AR) physical game that sees teams target each other with attacks only visible to players and live feed spectators.
Points are accumulated by hitting your opponent and removing them from the field of play. The team with the most points at the end of the 80-second round are declared the winner.
ESL Prem has covered a variety of games over the years, and currently focuses largely on CSGO. The most recent ESL Prem, Spring 2022, was won by Endpoint the other day. Now it’s moving into a different kind of esport.
Hado has a global esports circuit. Arenas all over the world send their best teams to compete at the Hado World Cup, and Brighton’s Team IDK are the consecutive UK champions. They represented the region in Japan at previous World Cups.
“In many ways this is a demonstration of the inevitable natural convergence of esports and sports and absolutely defines part of the future in competitive sports.”
James Dean, ESL
Jim Sephton, MD of UK Hado, said: “The strategic choices that teams make in allocating stat points and the synergy between different sets of options have a massive effect on the outcome of a match. Not just knowing what works well for your team, but what choices are likely to give you the edge against your opponents.”
James Dean, director of UK strategy and commercial at ESL Gaming, commented: “The ESL Premiership has always been an innovative platform allowing for new games, formats, technology, work flows, creativity and talent to try things out.
“Hado is no exception, for the first time we’re extremely excited to implement a high paced physical augmented reality and highly competitive video game into our national league. In many ways this is a demonstration of the inevitable natural convergence of esports and sports and absolutely defines part of the future in competitive sports.”
Teams from the established Coventry and Brighton arenas have been invited, alongside teams from Warwick University, Birmingham City University and Barnsley College. Teams made up from members of the Armed Forces will also be competing; RAF Halton plays host to one of the many Hado arenas in the UK. They will be divided into pools, with matches taking place to create a four-team playoff bracket.
All the action will be broadcasted live from Insomnia, featuring commentary and a virtual studio, hosted remotely in York.
Tune into the ESL Premiership Hado Invitational, live from the expo floor on Sunday April 17th at 12pm on the ESL UK Twitch channel. Visitors can try Hado for themselves at the i68 arena and visit ukhado.com for more information.
In related news, the Insomnia68 esports casters, content creators, companies and tournament schedules have been announced.
Insomnia esports coverage powered by AGON by AOC – see the AGON League of Legends monitor & our latest i68 coverage
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Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
