Hasta La Gadget!

Riot Games is changing its plans for the 2021 League of Legends World Championship (aka Worlds). The event was supposed to take place in China for the second straight year, but it’s moving to Europe amid travel complications brought on by the rapid spread of the COVID-19 Delta variant.

“We’ve reached the point where it’s extremely difficult to guarantee that qualifying teams and their best players would be able to attend Worlds this year,” John Needham, Riot’s global head of esports, said in a video. “After considering all possible options, we concluded that moving Worlds to Europe provided the best opportunity for the most teams and their best players to compete.”

Worlds 2021 was supposed to take place in five cities across China, culminating in Shenzhen in November, after initially being announced for the US in 2018. Riot hasn’t revealed exactly where in Europe it will bring one of the biggest events in esports this year, though Needham noted that accessibility for the highest number of teams and their key players will be the most critical factor. Riot will reveal more details about Worlds 2021 in the coming days and weeks.

Earlier this month, Riot moved the final matches of the League of Legends Championship Series (LCS) — the esport’s North American league — from a New Jersey arena to its LCS Arena in Los Angeles. It said the rise in Delta variant cases meant that it “cannot in good conscience conduct a massive fan event at this time.”

Other esports are still pressing forward with in-person events in North America. The 2021 Call of Duty League season just wrapped up, with its championship weekend being held at a packed Galen Center in Los Angeles. The Overwatch League playoffs and grand finals are set to take place in Dallas and the same LA arena respectively next month, marking the esport’s return to in-person events in the US.

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Just ahead of Gamescom’s official opening, Microsoft is hosting its latest showcase on Tuesday. You can expect around 90 minutes of news and updates during the event, which starts at 1PM ET.

Microsoft is promising more info about Xbox Game Pass and some of the biggest upcoming Xbox titles, including details about some previously announced games from internal studios and third-party developers. Much of the focus will be on the company’s holiday slate, so there’s a good chance Xbox will finally reveal the release date for Halo Infinite (even if the game will lack a couple of core game modes at the outset). The event will also include another look at gameplay from Techland’s Dying Light 2 Stay Human.

You can watch the Gamescom 2021 Xbox Stream on official Xbox channels on Twitch, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, or simply watch it via the below embed. Microsoft is broadcasting the event on other platforms elsewhere, including Bilibili in China and VK in Russia. There’ll be American Sign Language, German Sign Language and English audio description versions of the stream too. The company is subtitling the event in 30 languages, but not all of those will be available during the live broadcast.

It’s worth noting that Xbox will stream the event in 1080p at 60 frames per second. A 4K version will be available on its YouTube channel afterward.

We are living through a time unprecedented in human history. The world is at once more connected than ever and also falling apart in ways almost beyond comprehension.

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