Initial Esports Nations Cup 2026 format details revealed

Jack Stewart, Senior Editor

Last Updated: 07/01/2026

The Esports World Cup Foundation has released initial details as to how the Esports Nations Cup will work.

Running separately from the summer’s Esports World Cup, the Nations Cup will invite countries to compete for national pride.

The international event will take place in November and last for four weeks in total.

Nations will compete with mixed rosters of players from different teams across multiple esports titles with a total $70m (£51.8m) prize pool.

While more details are set to be announced throughout January, the EWCF has revealed more about the event’s competition format and qualification model.

In total, each team-based event will see between 24 and 48 national teams competing.

Per the rules, no full rosters will be allowed to enter as a full national team. For example, South Korea couldn’t send all of T1 for a League of Legends tournament.

The rosters will have to be mixed, though how these rosters will be decided and who will be in charge of each nation has not been confirmed.

Meanwhile, solo games will feature from 32 to 128 players per title with a maximum of two representatives per nation.

However, some tournaments may see more national representatives than that during earlier qualification stages.

Therefore, multiple teams or players from one nation could compete against each other to determine the nation’s official representative.

Each event will feature a 50/50 split between directly invited nations and nations which earnt a slot through open qualifiers.

Additionally, all national players and teams at the Esports Nations Cup Finals will be guaranteed to play at least three matches.

What games will be played at the Esports Nations Cup?

The inaugural Esports Nations Cup will feature 16 different esports titles, but which games specficially hasn’t been confirmed.

However, the EWCF has confirmed some of the partnered publishers, which gives us a good idea of what can be expected.

Partnering with Chess.com, of course, means that Chess will appear at the Esports Nations Cup as it did at the Esports World Cup last year.

Partnering with EA likely means EA FC 26 will be present, though as the event is in November it could be EA FC 27 instead.

Krafton being a partner suggests PUBG: Battlegrounds will be present, and the mobile version could be too as Tencent is another partner.

The inclusion of Tencent could also suggest that Riot Games titles League of Legends, Valorant, and Teamfight Tactics could all be present too.

SNK will mean Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves will be at the event, while Moonton practically confirms Mobile Legends: Bang Bang.

And finally, Ubisoft being a partner suggests Rainbow Six Siege X will be another of the 16 Esports Nation Cup events.

Jack Stewart, Senior Editor

In my seven years of esports writing, I've introduced esports coverage to newspapers, interviewed some of the biggest names in the industry, and driven viewers mad with the puns in my YouTube scripts. I'm most proud of the latter.

All Posts By Jack Stewart