VALORANT Esports details EMEA 2025 season changes

Game developer Riot Games has detailed more ecosystem changes for the upcoming 2025 VALORANT EMEA esports season.

The announcement involves the VCT EMEA League, the region’s top-tier competitive VALORANT league, its Challengers EMEA ecosystem and other events in the region.

The EMEA changes delve further into Riot Games’ overall format announcement that was detailed in November 2024. The new announcement highlights Apeks joining as the latest Ascension team, taking the league to 12 organisations. Moreover, the calendar for Challengers EMEA has been revealed.

For VCT EMEA, it has been revealed that games will primarily remain on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. However, all playoff games in 2025 will take place across Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The VCT EMEA Finals will occur on Sunday.

Perhaps the biggest announcement is VALORANT’s new event called Challengers EMEA. The competition will take place across 2025 and is set to have three splits: March, May and September.

The regular regional Challengers leagues will still be operated by third-party organisers, but the new event will feature a pan-regional competition.

In the first two stages, the Challengers EMEA will feature two teams from the DACH, French, Spanish and Turkish leagues, and four teams from the NORTH//EAST region. The top team from each group advances to the playoffs and will get a chance to win the split.

The third stage will feature 14 teams from all of the Challengers leagues, split into four groups. As before, the best teams in the group stage advance to the playoffs and will get the chance to go to the grand finals. Teams that win regional leagues will be awarded Championship points, and the best teams in the Challengers EMEA will get points as well, with the amount increasing through the stages.

The winner of the final Challengers EMEA in Stage 3 will receive a direct invitation to Ascension, and the rest of the teams will be decided via Championship Points. Riot Games said that more information about the Ascension tournament will be available in 2025.

Riot Games has also announced that it aims to create an amateur tournament in 2025. Moreover, Game Changers teams will compete in a single group during the year, in contrast to the two-group system that was in place previously.