ASUS Republic of Gamers (ROG) has collaborated with Counter-Strike legend Mathieu ‘ZywOo’ Herbaut and Prodigy Agency to launch a ROG Falchion Ace HFX ZywOo Edition keyboard.

The keyboard has been co-created with the French player, and the announcement comes five months after he was named a global ambassador for the PC hardware manufacturer. 

The ROG Falchion Ace HFX ZywOo Edition is a 65% gaming keyboard featuring ROG HFX magnetic switches, Rapid Trigger technology, Speed Tap mode, an interactive touch panel, and an 8000Hz polling rate.

“When we created the ASUS ROG global ambassador deal a few months ago, the vision was always to go further and co-create iconic products with ZywOo,” shared Jérôme Coupez, Founder & CEO of Prodigy Agency.

“This keyboard is the perfect next step, and we are proud at Prodigy to have co-created a product that captures both his mindset and his legacy.”

In addition, the keyboard sports a signature design themed around ZywOo.

“I have been playing with the Falchion Ace HFX for months now, and it has been a key part of my success this season,” said the Team Vitality player.

“Being able to create my own version with ASUS ROG feels very special. It is something I always dreamed of, and I cannot wait for fans to experience the keyboard the same way I do in competition.”

The ROG Falchion Ace HFX ZywOo Edition keyboard will be available on ASUS ROG’s official website.

ZywOo, known as The Chosen One, is having another remarkable year in his Counter-Strike career, which now spans over a decade. He has won eight Tier 1 CS2 events in 2025 for Team Vitality, while grabbing seven back-to-back MVP titles.

According to the press release, he played with the ROG Falchion Ace HFX ZywOo Edition keyboard at ESL Pro League Season 22, where the roster lifted the champions trophy in June 2025.

Esports organisation T1 has announced that it will be opening cafés in Malaysia and Thailand on October 18th, 2025.

The announcement comes as the South Korean team competes in the League of Legends World Championships 2025 in China.

According to the announcement post, these are the locations of both cafés:

What will be included in the café was not revealed. However, fans can likely expect to see similar features to its base camp café, including PC gaming rigs, food and drinks, T1 merchandise and more.

Last year, South Korean organisation T1 Entertainment & Sport announced a $35m capital investment to bolster its operations. According to CEO, Joe Marsh, the investment aimed to expand the T1 Base Camp and PC gaming café opened in Seoul, South Korea.

T1 is not the only esports organisation to invest in venues and properties. Earlier this year, fellow Worlds 2025 competitor and MSI Champion, Gen.G Esports, launched the Gen.G Gaming Xperience venue in South Korea.

The announcement arrives while T1 competes in the League of Legends World Championships 2025 as the reigning champions.

As of writing, the Swiss Stage is underway, and the squad has already played matches against FlyQuest (win) and CTBC Flying Oyster (loss). T1 will aim to qualify amongst the top eight teams in the Knockout Stage, where it will fight for a place in the Grand Finals.

Worlds 2025 is the crowning event of the League of Legends esports scene, where the top 17 teams from around the world compete for the lion’s share of its $5m (~£3.7m) prize pool.

League of Legends World Championship (Worlds 2025) is the most highly anticipated esports event of the year, and this season is coming in hot with stacked competition from grizzled veterans and shiny new rosters. Starting from October 14, 2025, the global event makes its third return to China, where the tournament will rage on until the grand finals of November 9. 

But before that, 17 (16 after play-ins) of the world’s top teams will undergo a Swiss format to qualify for the Knockout stage. This year’s World Championship adopts the Fearless Draft system for the first time in the tournament. Additionally, this is the first tournament featuring the LCP and the first (and last) appearance of the LTA.

For fans who only tune in during Worlds, this is a quick guide with the teams and key players heading into the tournament, the main storylines, alongside a prediction on who will lift the Summoner’s Cup at the end of it all.

All four of Korea’s teams are expected to make deep runs into Worlds 2025, with expectations that at least one (or most likely two) will fight in the grand finals.

Gen.G Esports is the team to beat, entering Worlds as the reigning LCK champions, the EWC 2025 champions, and the 2025 MSI champions. If that wasn’t enough, Gen.G even set a record for the longest win streak in League esports. This lineup is five aces deep, which almost feels unfair for everyone else. If they don’t march onto that finals stage, it will be a tragic end to a historic season.

Don’t undervalue the other LCK representatives, though. Top laner and previous Worlds MVP Zeus has found great success with Hanwha Life Esports (HLE). Together with ADC powerhouse Viper, they became the LCK runner-up. The team has maintained its position as a top contender since winning the international First Stand tournament earlier this year. The squad has three former winners in its lineup (Zeka and Viper), with Zeus chasing a third title.

Of course, it wouldn’t feel right to hold Worlds without T1. The play-in series between T1 and Invictus Gaming (T1) was worthy of a grand final and immediately broke viewership records for the tournament. While the hype is slowly fading away, remember that they were there in the first place because they barely squeaked by as the fourth seed.

With IG bowing out early, the spotlight swings to the LPL’s top seed. Bilibili Gaming still has that 3–2 sting from last year’s final vs. T1. However, they’ve been grinding domestically while also showing up strong during international events.

Another huge contender from China is Anyone’s Legend (AL), a team that wasn’t even on the radar at the start of the year but quickly rose to prominence with good results. Led by star jungle Tarzan, AL almost took the trophy away from Gen.G in its five-game series in EWC 2025. They came in third during MSI, pushing Gen.G and T1 to the limit during the tournament.

For the first time, we have the League of Legends Championship Pacific (LCP), a newly merged Asia-Pacific league combining Southeast Asia (PCS), Vietnam (VCS), Japan (LJL), and Oceania, formed to create stronger competition.

LCP’s champion, CTBC Flying Oyster (CFO), is the strongest team ever from the Pacific region. In its debut year, CFO achieved an unprecedented domestic grand slam, winning all three splits with a combined record of only one loss all year. The young roster is expected to fight all the way to the top eight.

Europe’s G2 Esports also cannot be overlooked. G2 had a rebuilding year with two new players. While Mid laner Caps is eager to recapture his old glory, G2 has struggled to get past the Worlds group stage the past two years. Before ever considering the top teams, they’ll need to beat gatekeepers like Flying Oyster and FlyQuest to get there.

On the Western front, the League Championship of the Americas (LTA), a temporary merged league of North America, Latin America, and Brazil, produced a clear front-runner in FlyQuest. 

FlyQuest enters Worlds as the best hope for the region, returning with the same roster that nearly upset Gen.G in last year’s quarterfinals. They dominated the Americas region again in 2025, and are led by star jungler Kacper “Inspired” Słoma, who was MVP in both Europe and NA in recent years.

Gen.G enters Worlds 2025 as the overwhelming favourites to win, and it won’t be to anyone’s surprise if they do just that. The squad is stacked with superstars, while the other contenders have shown weakness in previous tournaments. 

Chovy mid and ADC Ruler are your usual headline acts. But don’t sleep on Canyon, the former Worlds champ who’s solid on objectives and enabling the team. Who actually pushes them in a final? It’s all up to Bilibili Gaming, Hanwha Life Esports, and T1.

BLG is China’s best hope and the strongest LPL team in years. With Worlds on home soil this year, they will have massive crowd support to push for the trophy. Mid laner Knight is one of the most decorated LPL players with multiple domestic titles, and fellow experienced top laner Bin backs him up.

Hanwha Life Esports and T1 have championship-calibre squads and will likely easily make it into the top four. Eventually, they’ll run into Gen.G, and that’s a puzzle they’ve been trying to solve domestically the whole season. HLE’s Viper and Zeus are already among the best in their roles globally, but they’ll have to put on flawless performances in high-pressure matches if they want to make it to the end. 

Meanwhile, reigning champions T1 barely qualified as LCK’s fourth seed and had to survive through five brutal matches against IG. Thankfully, Faker has made it through, and the viewership for the tournament is saved. The GOAT is making his 10th World appearance, but he’ll need to surpass and not just keep up with the skilled midlaners in the tournament.

Support Keria is undoubtedly the best in his role in the tournament, but that doesn’t mean he’s immune to subpar performances. If T1 can fix its inconsistency, then it can settle its rivalry with Gen.G at the main stage.

These are the expected teams who will make it to the top four, but these next four teams surely deserve a spot in the top eight with the potential to make it further: Anyone’s Legend, FlyQuest, CTBC Flying Oyster, and Top Esports. If those squads go deep, the usual script gets spicy and messes with the expected regional pecking order.

This Worlds 2025, expect the full package: drama, cracked mechanics, and big-stage spectacle. Grudges, rivalries, lore, and regional flexing are all queued up. Korean teams are expected to attain high results, but Chinese squads could find their fighting spirit on home soil.

Not only that, but unexpected teams are slowly closing in on the competition, like with Flying Oyster, and there’s finally hope for the West with FlyQuest. Regardless of who makes it to the top, Gen.G will be there, and it’s all up to them to close out a historic season.

Web3 gaming startup Trexx is developing a dedicated layer-1 blockchain platform in partnership with decentralised infrastructure company Tanssi Network.

This development aims to provide new monetisation and fan engagement tools for the esports industry.

Trexx will leverage Tanssi’s decentralised infrastructure-as-a-service protocol to build a custom blockchain that will offer monetary rewards to loyal players within its ecosystem. 

The platform is planned to include features such as behavioural credit scoring, AI-driven engagement tools, and the capacity to create tokenised digital products. 

Consequently, Trexx noted that game developers and esports teams could use these resources to potentially build deeper, more monetisable relationships with fanbases.

This model aims to address the industry-wide challenge of converting user engagement into sustainable revenue streams. 

“By launching our own chain with Tanssi, we can finally deliver the loyalty mechanics and community experiences gamers deserve, starting in Brazil and expanding across LATAM,” Heloisa Passos, CEO of Trexx, stated in the press release.

The partnership also represents a major milestone for Tanssi, as it marks the first layer-1 platform being built on its mainnet. The platform’s chief executive, Thiago Rudiger, has indicated that this collaborations could be the first of several intended to expand esports’ footprint in Latin America.

Based in Brazil, Trexx connects developers, teams, and gamers through a unified ecosystem. The platform uses structured incentives, rewards, and loyalty programmes to drive engagement.

Its early growth is demonstrated by the onboarding of 16 Brazilian esports teams, a figure confirmed in the partnership announcement. 

One notable name among these teams is Imperial, the recent champion of the 2025 FERJEE Esports Circuit, a CS2 tournament series held in Brazil.

FaZe Clan content creator Kris ‘Swagg‘ Lamberson will host a Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 LAN tournament as part of TwitchCon San Diego 2025.

The tournament will see several members of the North American esports organisation’s content creator division competing in a two-versus-two Search and Destroy tournament at the streamer convention.

Taking place on October 18th, 2025, the tournament will see the FaZe Clan members competing for a share of a $25,000 (~£18,605) prize pool.

Swagg isn’t the only FaZe Clan member who is hosting an esports tournament at TwitchCon San Diego. Kaysan ‘FaZe Kaysan’ Ghasseminejad is also hosting a two-versus-two Black Ops 6 tournament on the same day.

Instead of featuring content creators, the tournament will see duos representing FaZe Vegas, the Los Angeles Thieves, OpTic Texas, and Team Falcons competing for another $25,000 prize pool.

Swagg’s tournament is one of the final Black Ops 6 tournaments taking place during the Call of Duty esports off-season. On November 14th, attention turns to Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 and the start of a new CDL season set to begin in December.

Fans can tune into Swagg’s TwitchCon LAN event through the creator’s Twitch channel once it begins.

TwitchCon San Diego 2025 celebrates ten years since the first convention took place in September 2015 at San Francisco’s Moscone Center.

In addition to various workshops and opportunities for fans to meet their favourite creators, Twitch Rivals will host a variety of esports tournaments covering a wide range of titles.

The convention will feature competitions in Marvel Rivals, Street Fighter 6, and GeoGuessr that will be broadcast on its dedicated Twitch channel.

Outside of Twitch Rivals, Bad Guitar Studios has announced it will host the Punk Clash Cup, a FragPunk tournament open to all attendees at the convention.

Esports and sports betting company BETBY has maintained its momentum, reporting another period of steady growth in its Q3 2025 report.

The company highlighted its strong operational results across the sportsbook and esports verticals, as well as its growing global footprint.

Data shows that BETBY’s sportsbook increased its Gross Gaming Revenue (GGR) by 56.07% year-over-year, while also seeing a 24.92% increase in total bets placed and a 19.45% increase in active players.

These outcomes not only demonstrate ongoing participation from its network of partners, but the company also upheld a strong growth trajectory set during the first half of the year.

BETBY credits its stability to its continuous investment in AI-powered tools, proprietary trading models, and tailored partner support.

With an 8.43% year-over-year increase in GGR, a 6.18% increase in total bets, and an 11.85% increase in active players over Q3 2024, the company’s esports vertical, Betby.Games also helped to make the quarter successful.

Chief Executive Officer Leonid Pertsovskiy praised the company’s sustained growth: “Q3 once again demonstrates the strength of our products and the trust we’ve built with our partners. We continue to deliver solid results across both sportsbook and esports verticals, driven by innovation, user-centric solutions, and our commitment to excellence.”

He also added that BETBY remains focused on accelerating its expansion through the remainder of 2025, strengthening its position as a Tier-1 supplier within the global iGaming ecosystem.

French esports organisation Gentle Mates has renewed the contract of Fortnite player Vanya ‘Vanyak3k‘ Sakach.

As a result, Vanyak3k will continue representing the organisation during the 2026 Fortnite Champion Series (FNCS) season.

Announced on October 15th, 2025, the re-signing of Vanyak3k follows a period of change for Gentle Mates, which has cemented itself as one of Europe’s top Fortnite teams.

On October 14th, the organisation parted ways with six players, including Danila ‘Malibuca‘ Iakovenko, who scored a second-place finish in Europe’s Major 1 Grand Final in February.

In addition to Malibuca, Gentle Mates’ Fortnite coach, Florian ‘Ketzon’ Besson, announced his retirement from the esport after supporting the organisation’s players since it entered the battle royale title in 2023.

Throughout 2025, Vanyak3k has cemented his place as one of Europe’s top Fortnite talents thanks to frequent appearances in Major Grand Finals and strong placements on the international stage.

At the FNCS 2025 Global Championship, the Ukrainian finished second, taking home $100,000 (~£74,399) alongside Team HavoK player Wilmer ‘Pixie‘ Juriander and Gentle Mates teammate Marius ‘MariusCOW‘ Wendt.

Since launching in 2023, Gentle Mates has continued to establish itself as one of the biggest esports organisations in France.

In 2024, it entered the Call of Duty League, taking over the Los Angeles franchise slot. The 2026 season will be the first full year where Gentle Mates is the sole operator, and is seemingly teasing a rebrand and a potential relocation.

In August 2025, the organisation expanded into Counter-Strike 2 esports. Following a last-minute invitation to ESL Pro League Season 22, the team almost secured qualification for November’s StarLadder Budapest Major.

Securing Vanyak3k to its Fortnite division for another season is a statement of intent for an organisation that’s closing in on achieving success across several esports titles.

Game developer and publisher, Riot Games, is working on an ‘unpublished R&D product’ according to various job listings.

Little is currently known about the unannounced game in development, though reports claim that the listings originally mentioned ties to the ‘VALORANT IP’ and the ‘FPS Genre.’

Various roles are listed for the mysterious game, including Associate Art Director for 3D Art, Brand Management Director, Director of Marketing Creative Direction and more, and are all based in Los Angeles, US.

According to The Game Post, one of the listings originally said: “Experience creating characters for the FPS genre. Experience working on a highly recognisable, stylised game. Experience working with modern game engines such as Unity, Unreal, or proprietary technologies. Familiarity with the VALORANT IP.”

The job listing has further fueled community speculation surrounding Riot Games’ upcoming title, with some drawing connections to Project T, which many fans believe to be an MMOFPS and extraction shooter spinoff of VALORANT.

Various early build screenshots have reportedly been leaked online through a prominent leaker, ‘PlayerIGN‘. However, Riot Games has yet to confirm the validity of these images.

Only time will tell what kind of title Riot Games has been making behind the scenes, and whether or not it has the potential to foster another esports scene for the developer.

Riot Games has various projects under its belt, including popular esports titles such as League of Legends and VALORANT.

2025 also saw new projects take the spotlight, such as the recent transition to Early Access for its 2v2 fighting game and spin-off to League of Legends, 2XKO. The developers have also committed to sponsoring over 22 community-led tournaments to help build a competitive scene for the tag team FGC title.

The developers are also preparing for the launch of their upcoming trading card game also based on League of Legends, Riftbound. A bundle was revealed earlier this month to celebrate Riot Games’ premier esports event, Worlds 2025.