Riot Games announced Tuesday that the Valorant Game Changers EMEA Stage 3 Finals will take place at the ESA Arena in İstanbul, Türkiye, on Oct. 6, officially marking the first time that Game Changers EMEA goes “on the road.”
Riot also announced that a new mixed-gender tournament called the VCT OFF//SEASON Spotlight Series will be held on Oct. 10, concluding at Paris Games Week on Oct. 24.
“We are extremely excited to bring Valorant Game Changers on the road for the first time and to introduce a mixed gender tournament to the 2024 Valorant Esports calendar at Paris Games Week,” said Daniel Ringland, head of Valorant Esports EMEA, in a release. “Our ambition with Game Changers is to create new opportunities for women in our ecosystem, and we hope these events will help us accelerate towards a future where all players are competing side by side at the highest level.”
For the Valorant Game Changers EMEA Stage 3 Finals, the top four teams from the two groups will qualify for the Playoffs, featuring a double-elimination bracket played online, aside from the Grand Final itself. The Upper Bracket will feature three rounds of play to reach the Grand Final, while the Lower Bracket consists of four. The Upper Bracket Final will be a best-of-three (BO3), while the Lower Bracket Final will be a best-of-five (BO5)—the Grand Final will also be BO5.
The VCT OFF//SEASON Spotlight Series will take place online from Oct. 10 – 16, before concluding at Paris Games Week on Oct. 24. The Grand Final will take place on the Main Stage, in front of 2000 spectators. This will be an invitational event with 14 VCT and Challengers teams—who will be required to have at least two Game Changers players on their mixed teams, with the choice left to them on whether to be majority men or women teams. Teams will also compete for a €30K EUR ($33.3K USD) total prize pool.
More details on these Valorant Esports events can be found in this official blog post from Riot.