Mobile Legends: Bang Bang esports in 2025: Key moments of the year

Mobile Legends: Bang Bang (MLBB) is one of the most popular esports titles globally, and 2025 turned out to be another monumental year for the game.

While the MLBB Professional Leagues (MPL) in Indonesia and the Philippines continued to amass significant viewership, another region is soon to grow, with a franchised model on the horizon. Additionally, the year also saw one of the game’s most decorated players complete their trophy cabinet.

Esports Insider takes a look at all the biggest MLBB moments of the year.

One of the biggest moves came in May when Team Vitality, one of the most popular European esports organisations, acquired one of Indonesia’s most notable orgs, Bigetron Esports.

After that, Bigetron rebranded to Bigetron by Vitality. Just like that, Team Vitality had a deep operational footprint in Southeast Asia and a presence in one of the most competitive MLBB regions.

The thing that made this acquisition matter wasn’t really the branding change. Bigetron is an established MPL Indonesia participant. Therefore, Team Vitality essentially bought its way into the heart of one of the world’s strongest MLBB leagues.

This reinforced a pattern fans have been seeing across esports, where global organisations are starting to view mobile titles and SEA leagues as core pillars for long-term growth rather than a secondary market to explore later.

However, the MPL Indonesia team’s first year under the new banner failed to impress, as it failed to qualify for the M7 World Championship, which is set to take place in January 2026.

On the other hand, Team Vitality’s women’s team continued to be one of MLBB’s shining lights. The team was acquired by the organisation from Bigetron in 2024. At the 2025 MLBB Women’s Invitational, Team Vitality dominated to take first place.

MPL Malaysia took a pretty decisive step towards commercial maturity this year by introducing ticketed entry for live matches. Starting with Season 15, fans had to buy tickets to attend matches in person.

That was a clear departure from the league’s previous open-access model, where fans could just show up on game days.

That decision gained even more weight later in the year when MOONTON confirmed that MPL Malaysia will transition to a franchised structure in 2026. As a result, Season 16 was the final edition under the legacy format.

It’s understood that MPL Malaysia’s franchise structure could be different from Indonesia and the Philippines; however, details are still unclear. Whilst more information is likely to come after the M7 World Championship, the announcement alone was a monumental highlight for MLBB esports in 2025.

This year’s biggest organisation reshuffle came via Saudi Arabian organisations Team Falcons and Twisted Minds. Both joined before MPL Philippines Season 15 after taking over slots that were held by former world champion Blacklist International and former MLBB SEA champion RSG Philippines, respectively.

These acquisitions were significant not just because of the teams involved, but because of where those teams were buying into. MPL Philippines is widely considered one of MLBB’s most competitive and commercially valuable leagues. It’s been a consistent pipeline for international success.

By securing permanent slots there, these organisations demonstrated long-term confidence in both the Philippine ecosystem and MLBB’s trajectory globally.

In the end, similarly to Bigetron by Vitality, both of the organisations’ teams failed to qualify for the M7 World Championship, further emphasising the ecosystem’s competitiveness. Representing the Philippines is Team Liquid PH, which joined the scene in 2024, and Aurora Gaming, another Western team that expanded east.

Team Falcons will also be at the world championship, representing MPL MENA as its Season 8 champion.

This year, MLBB once again returned to the SEA Games as a medal event with a men’s and women’s category.

The competition wrapped up with the Philippines winning gold in the men’s category and Malaysia claiming gold in the women’s event. While the Philippines’ men’s team came into the competition as heavy favourites, it was the Malaysian women’s squad which took home a surprising and historic gold medal.

Facing the Philippines in an intense final, the two countries traded games, taking the series all the way to the seventh game, where Malaysia came out on top.

Beyond just the results, MLBB’s inclusion in the SEA Games will always be a symbolic moment. Since the game was included as a medal event, any medals earned contributed to the country’s overall tally.

This legitimacy is set to continue as MLBB has been included as a medal event in the 2026 Asian Games as well.

While there were many ecosystem-level shifts in 2025, the year would be incomplete without talking about Karl ‘KarlTzy’ Gabriel Nepomuceno.

The player has been competing since 2018 and, up until the beginning of the year, had won almost everything. This included multiple MPL Philippines titles, the M World Championship twice, a gold at the SEA Games, an MVP award at M2, and multiple third-party tournaments.

Behind all these accolades, however, there was one which completely alluded him — and that was the MLBB Mid Season Cup (MSC). This all changed at the Esports World Cup, though, where Team Liquid dominated the competition to win it all.

Therefore, the Filipino player was able to finally complete his trophy cabinet in 2025. He’s now looking to set another record at the M7 World Championship at Jakarta in January, aiming to win his third world championship title.