UK university esports body NSE (National Student Esports) and game developer 24 Entertainment have partnered on a £5,000 two-stage Naraka: Bladepoint University Invitational tournament.
This will be split into online and offline play, and is exclusively for UK university students.
Naraka: Bladepoint is a martial arts battle royale game with more than 10m copies sold worldwide.
The event will feature 16 university teams invited to battle against one another across three weeks of play, two weeks online and one offline. In the third and final week, all teams will face off live in person at HOST’s state-of-the-art facility in Salford on December 4th to decide who will be crowned the Naraka Bladepoint University Invitational champion.
As well as a slice of the £5,000 prize pool, students will also be able to showcase their skills to the rest of the community with all three weeks broadcast on the NSE Twitch channel.
The first games are due to start on Sunday November 20th 2022, with invited universities soon to be announced.
While Naraka esports has had some involvement in the UK, with British casters and content creators Foxdrop and Hiprain, this is the first time Naraka: Bladepoint has been offered to UK university students, having both a mix of offline and online play.
“We’re really proud to offer university students the experience to compete in a LAN setting and showcase the unique gameplay of Naraka Bladepoint. This will be a great avenue in growing our international presence with NSE and collegiate esports.”
Archer Wang, 24 Entertainment
Sam Hibbert, business director at NSE, said: “Naraka: Bladepoint is a refreshing take on a much-loved genre and we can’t wait to start working with 24 Entertainment to put on an exciting event students won’t forget.
“We’re regularly working with more and more publishers to bring toptitles to the UK’s largest grassroots gaming community. As always we’re looking for more ways to further enrich our community’s experience whilst at university and this will be a brilliant opportunity for those competing to demonstrate their talent.”
Archer Wang, marketing executive at 24 Entertainment, added: “We’re really proud to offer university students the experience to compete in a LAN setting and showcase the unique gameplay of Naraka Bladepoint. This will be a great avenue in growing our international presence with NSE and collegiate esports.”
The news comes after it was recently announced that the NSE British University Esports Championship would feature Fortnite for the first time, and a new UK University Call of Duty League supported by NSE was announced.
Earlier this year, NSE partnered with Genshin Impact developer HoYoverse for a Genshin Impact University Invitational, which saw UCL win the final.
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.
