Esports organisation Apeks has announced that it will be pausing its VALORANT operations for the foreseeable future following its performance this season.

Apeks leaves the scene after being relegated from VCT EMEA, failing to qualify for VALORANT Champions in Paris, or any of the VCT Majors in 2025.

In its statement online, Apeks shared how its departure was partly influenced by Riot Games changing the VCT slot duration to one year (previously two) after the 2024 season. The oraniz detailed how it faced a ‘significant budget reduction’ in 2025 in light of this, alongside other ‘factors.’

Apeks said: “Ultimately, while we are confident that we could once again build a high-calibre roster for VCL, the current system no longer aligns with the conditions that initially led us to invest in the space. We hope to return at a later point, but for now, we bid farewell.”

Apeks first announced its entry into the VALORANT scene in January 10th, 2023, competing in the VALORANT Challengers league. After winning VCT Ascension EMEA 2024 by defeating PCIFIC Esports 3-2 in the Grand Finals, it secured a place in the VCT 2025 EMEA Kickoff event.

However, Apeks’ VALORANT team has struggled this season, failing to qualify for a single Major. It was among the first teams to be eliminated from VCT EMEA Kickoff, missing out on Masters Bangkok. It placed 11th in VCT EMEA Stage 1, failing to advance to Masters Toronto, and it was missed out on VALORANT Champions in Paris after placing 12th in VCT EMEA Stage 2.

Apeks has signed a number of players during its time in VCT, Ava ‘florescent‘ Eugene, who left the organisation earlier this year and retired indefinitely to “rest up and recharge.”

Before its announcement, several of Apeks’ players were allowed to explore options for the 2026 season as restricted free agents following the conclusion of EMEA Stage 2.

CrossFire: Legends, the mobile version of the tactical FPS, has begun pre-registrations as the game gears up for release in SEA later this year.

The title has been developed by Tencent’s TiMi Studios, and was first released in China on December 3rd, 2025. However, it is being published in SEA by Level Infinite.

The developer has stated that players who pre-register will get a chance to gain early access to the title. Additionally, they will receive certain exclusive in-game rewards including diamonds and weapon skins.

Players also have a chance to participate in the Fortune’s Choice event. In this, players can invite friends to participate in a lucky draw where they can get in-game items, a PlayStation 5, a smartphone, and other rewards.

Although CrossFire: Legends was released globally in 2018, the global servers of the game have since been shut down. It continues to be immensely popular in China, and currently has a franchised esports league currently in its 18th season.

Earlier this year, the developers surprised players by announcing that the game is returning to SEA by the end of 2025. However, details for other regions haven’t been announced.

CrossFire Legends held its first international esports event before its global servers were taken down back in July 2018. The tournament, called the Global Invitational, featured teams from SEA, Brazil, and South Korea.

Despite no more international competitions after that, CrossFire: Legends launched the CrossFire Mobile League (CFML) for Chinese teams.

Since 2019, the league has adopted a franchise system, and features leading Chinese esports organisations like LGD, All Gamers, Q9, and EDward Gaming.

Currently, Season 16 of the CFML is underway from August 27th to December 6th. The tournament is taking place at the CrossFire League Arena in Chengdu, China.

With the release in SEA coming shortly, Level Infinite could launch competitions for CrossFire Legends, especially since SEA is a big market for mobile esports.

With the Clash Royale League (CRL) 2025 World Finals approaching, Supercell has revealed the 2025 CRL Awards.

The CRL Awards give the community, participating players, leading content creators, and casters the chance to vote for the best moments and players from this year’s edition of the league.

The categories for the CRL 2025 are The MVP, The Clutch, The All-Rounder, The Dark Horse, and The One-Trick Pony.

All players who have qualified for the CRL 2025 World Finals, set to take place at DreamHack Atlanta from October 31st to November 2nd, are part of the nominations for all categories.

Fans can head to the Esports News tab in Clash Royale to cast their votes until October 20th.

Votes from players, official casters, and top content creators will be combined with the community’s opinions to determine the winners, which will be announced on October 24th.

Players have qualified for the CRL World Finals 2025 through four community events throughout the year.

The 12 players are defending world champion Mohamed “Mohamed Light” Tarek, Mugi, Ian77, Adriel Eduardo, Pedro, Sub, Lucas “LucasXGamer” Rocha, Egor “Khazardy” Akhmetzyanov, Kim “SandBox” Seoung-Jin, Samuel “xopxsam” Klotz, Frontier Guard, and Vitor “Vitor75” Sousa.

Supercell has not revealed the official format for the event yet; however, last year, it featured a double-elimination bracket. However, the 2024 edition only had eight players.

Now, with 12 players, it remains to be seen how Supercell accommodates the increase in competitors. The developer has said that there will be an opening ceremony on October 31st, though.

Coming into the tournament, Mohamed Light is the hot favourite, having qualified for the CRL World Finals through the Calalas Cup Gold Edition. The player also finished first in the seasonal leaderboard with his consistent performance across all four CRL community events.

Ian77 is another top contender, who most recently beat Mohamed Light in the Stats Royale Gold Edition.

Besides the title of world champion, there is a prize pool of $500,000 (~£375,500) on the line, with the champion walking away with $200,000 (~£150,200) alone.

HP Inc. has shown off two new gaming products created in collaboration with Riot Games, extending its partnership with the publisher of League of Legends and VALORANT.

Announced during the 2025 League of Legends World Championship in Chengdu, China, the new lineup includes the OMEN 16 League of Legends Limited Edition Laptop and the OMEN 25 Gaming Monitor — both designed with input from Riot’s esports ecosystem.

According to a release on HP’s website, the products aim to merge fan-inspired aesthetics with professional-grade performance, expanding on HP’s growing presence in competitive gaming hardware.

The announcement follows the launch of the OMEN 35L VALORANT Limited Edition Desktop in September, another collaboration under the companies’ ongoing global partnership first revealed in January 2024.

The OMEN 16 League of Legends Limited Edition Laptop features a range of design elements referencing the League universe, including HEXTECH gold accents and callouts on the QWER and DF keys — abilities central to the game’s control scheme.

Under the hood, the laptop offers up to an Intel Core i7-14650HX processor, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 GPU, and 32GB DDR5 RAM, along with an upgraded cooling system designed to improve airflow and reduce noise during extended play. The display supports up to a 240Hz QHD 16:10 panel, optimised for competitive performance.

The laptop also integrates OMEN AI, HP’s proprietary optimisation tool that automatically adjusts system and in-game settings to deliver consistent frame rates without manual tweaking.

Meanwhile, the OMEN 25 Gaming Monitor has been selected as the official display of Riot’s global esports events, including League of Legends Esports and the VALORANT Champions Tour (VCT). It offers a 360Hz refresh rate, 1ms GTG response time, and NVIDIA G-SYNC compatibility, ensuring smooth visuals in high-speed scenarios.

The monitor’s factory colour calibration and ergonomic design — including a headphone hook and adjustable stand — position it as a versatile option for both professional and home setups.

Josephine Tan, Senior Vice President and Division President of Personal Systems Gaming Solutions at HP Inc., said: “From all-out competition to all-in fandom, players want gear that reflects how they play.

“This launch and continued collaboration with Riot Games celebrates both, with performance and design that resonates with the gaming community.”

Chris Greeley, Global Head of League of Legends Esports at Riot Games, added: “Worlds is the ultimate celebration of League of Legends and our community. HP’s innovation continues to push what’s possible in gaming and esports.”

The partnership between the two companies has seen HP’s gaming brands, OMEN and HyperX, become integral to Riot’s global esports infrastructure. HP’s technology now powers multiple competitive events across Riot’s titles.

League of Legends esports personalities Eefje ‘Sjokz‘ Depoortere and Marc Robert ‘Caedrel‘ Lamont have unveiled the second edition of The League Awards.

The annual awards ceremony, which was first introduced last year, celebrates the MOBA title’s esports scene and will hand out awards covering a variety of categories.

The ceremony will take place on November 28th, 2025, at Munich’s SAP Garden, with Caedrel and Sjokz hosting the event.

This year’s event has partnered with energy drink brand Red Bull and international hotel chain Marriott Bonvoy. As a result of the Red Bull deal, the ceremony takes place the day before the Red Bull League of Its Own 2025 event.

Launched in 2024, the League Awards celebrate the entire League of Legends scene, with a mixture of votes from fans and industry professionals determining the winners of various awards. This includes player of the year, team of the year, and best content piece of the year.

Last year, T1 mid-laner Lee ‘Faker‘ Sang-hyeok took home the player of the year accolade while the South Korean esports organisation won the team of the year award.

Elsewhere, FlyQuest bot laner Fahad ‘Massu‘ Abdulmalek won the rookie of the year award, with teammate Kacper ‘Inspired‘ Słoma earning LCS player of the year.

Like most competitive industries, esports has its own dedicated awards ceremonies to commemorate memorable achievements from across the industry.

2025 will host the second edition of the League Awards. Meanwhile, the tenth running of the Esports Awards took place in August.

In addition to League of Legends, Counter-Strike esports publication HLTV hosts the HLTV Awards, which heads to Belgrade, Serbia, in January 2026 to celebrate Valve’s first-person shooter title.

Leo Faria, the Global Head of VALORANT Esports, has responded to community backlash surrounding the implementation of patch 11.08 during the Game Changers Championship.

In the latest dev panel, when Rioters were asked about this decision, the response that “the timing is unfortunate” raised several questions about the scene’s importance in the publisher’s eyes.

Addressing those concerns, Faria tweeted that while the team wanted to avoid this situation, this is the only period during which the developers can properly test different updates. He further explained that this hadn’t been an issue in previous years, as the changes made were not as significant as those announced for the 2025 Off//Season.

“The timing isn’t ideal and we know that,” he said. “In a perfect world, we’d avoid big gameplay changes right before a global tournament, but the reality is that this part of the year is our best window to make meaningful updates to VAL. That’s important for keeping the game fresh and giving the dev team time to monitor the changes and adjust them before the new season starts in January.

Faria added further: “This hasn’t been a problem in the past because the changes during this window were smaller. But this year’s update is more significant, and because these events are scheduled up to two years in advance (schedule, travel, venue, etc have been locked in for a while), we couldn’t shift things around.”

However, a valid question raised by the community was regarding the decision not to play the Game Changers Championship on the older patch. Leo Faria responded that the GC teams still have a decent amount of time to prepare before the event begins.

“This was absolutely discussed as an option, but comes with its own set of problems,” he shared. “Most importantly, keeping GCC on the previous patch would have made it much harder for teams to get meaningful practice. Some GC teams told us they’d prefer the older patch and others saw adapting quickly as an edge, so there wasn’t one clear path that worked for everyone.”

That said, Riot Games is working on moving the Game Changers Championship closer to VALORANT Champions in the future to improve these circumstances.

Moving forward, Riot is making major changes to VALORANT’s esports circuit. The biggest of these is the removal of Ascension tournaments, with Challengers teams now having a chance to qualify directly for the VCT Stage 2 Playoffs.

As a result, the time frame previously occupied by Ascension events will be used to schedule the Game Changers Championship slightly earlier, preventing teams from facing sudden meta shifts right before the scene’s biggest event of the year.