Rainbow Six Siege Joins the Esports World Cup

Rainbow Six Siege Esports joins the Esports World Cup in Saudi Arabia

The Esports World Cup Foundation formally announced Tuesday that Rainbow Six Siege will be a key title in the Esports World Cup, taking place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in July. 

The announcement was made via social media, but details (we assume) on the format for the competition and how teams might qualify to take part in it will be released at a later date. Some teams that ranked in the top five at the recent Six Invitational in Brazil (winners wm7 Esports, and runners-up FaZe Clan, G2 Esports, Soniqs, and KAWASAKI SCARZ) could receive an invite based on their performance, though specifics details on plans related to that were not released.

The announcement notes that teams will head to Riyadh to compete in a multi-day competition to crown the inaugural Rainbow Six Siege Esports World Cup Champion and take part of a multi-million-dollar prize pool.

Rainbow Six Siege joins a growing list of titles that will be a part of the 2024 Esports World Cup including Dota 2, Counter-Strike 2, Honor of Kings, and StarCraft II, and Free Fire, among others.

The news isn’t particularly shocking, as Ubisoft allowed its popular team-based tactical shooter to be utilized last year at Gamers8 (the old branding for the Esports World Cup), where eight teams competed for a portion of the $2M USD prize pool.

Also of note is that Ubisoft executives attended the New Global Sport Conference in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in October 2023, where the Saudi Arabian Government officially announced the Esports World Cup. Executives from  Moonton Games, G2 Esports, ESL FACEIT Group, Take-Two Interactive, APEX, MMO maker NCSOFT, Savvy Games Group, Sega of America, Sony, Team Vitality, 100 Thieves, Guild Esports, Krafton India, BITKRAFT Ventures, Ubisoft, LGD Gaming, VSPO, Team Falcons, Formula E, Huya, and Ninjas in Pyjamas were in attendance. 

Competitions for the Esports World Cup are being facilitated by ESL FACEIT Group, a wholly owned subsidiary of Savvy Games Group, which is in turn owned by the Saudi Arabian government’s sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund. EFG is home to a number of esports-related operations including tournament organizer ESL, tournament platform FACEIT, esports and gaming festival company DreamHack, esports production company Esports Engine, and esports and gaming analytics firm Vindex. 

It should be noted that, as tournament organizer BLAST is the official tournament partner of Ubisoft’s game, it is likely working in concert with EFG to facilitate this stop on the Rainbow Six Siege esports calendar.

Rainbow Six Siege publisher Ubisoft announced in February that the Six Invitational 2025 will be hosted in the United States, and Six Invitational 2026 will be held in France, with exact locations to be revealed at a later date. BLAST R6 Majors in 2024 will be hosted in Manchester, England, and Montréal, Canada, later this year.