In this special series of in-depth articles, Esports News UK, in collaboration with the betting partner GGBET UK, delves into the stories, moments, and personalities that have left a lasting impression on the past, present, and future of the UK esports scene.
In this final article, Dom Sacco looks ahead to the future of UK esports in five major games like League of Legends, Counter-Strike 2 and more.
Earlier this week, we asked members of the UK esports industry and community to make their predictions for the future of UK esports.
We had a range of people share their thoughts, and while most offered a general opinion on the broad state of UK esports, what about individual games? We’ll come onto five major esports titles in the UK in a bit.
The first thing to mention is the closure of Insomnia Gaming Festival and the huge impact this will have on grassroots esports scenes in multiple games. There is still Epic.LAN, sure, for some of the titles, and LANcraft Events looks to fill the gap, but to lose a LAN event of this size is significant.
We now also have Labour in power following the 2024 general election, and new culture secretary Lisa Nandy on board, so there will be some changes there. We’re sure Ukie and British Esports will continue to liaise with government and attempt to push UK esports in those discussions.
The Video Games and Esports All-Party Parliamentary Group has seen several of its members leave after failing to get re-elected, so there will be some changes there too. Expect this all to take some time as the new MPs settle. There’s more analysis on the government and the UK games industry in this substack piece by George Osborn.
Looking back at video games, and many competitive titles still have plenty of UK players, talent, teams and tournaments, with plenty of opportunities at the collegiate level with NSE, University Esports and more, so let’s have a look at what we can expect in the future.
The future of UK Valorant: Rising stars, format changes – and new national leagues?
Let’s start with Valorant, a game that’s popular in the UK with several casters, players and personalities from the UK and Ireland.
Valorant Challengers esports changes were recently announced for 2025.
And in Kim ‘vserov’ Panagos‘ article on the history of UK Valorant esports, he highlighted recent successes at the top level, with Heretics signing UK player Benjyfishy, and the team’s UK coaching duo of neilzinho and weber, as well as the likes of Keiko and Mistic at Team Liquid, and Scottish coach DrewSpark at Sentinels to name a few.
Dropping down one level, UK players have been continuing to flash promise in the VCLs. SweetnSour’s Theo ‘Ticey’ Cranshaw is looking like a breakout star in Polaris, while Ross ‘aNguiSt’ Pendleton has helped to headline a dominant CGN Esports’ run in the DACH Evolution VCL. See more UK Valorant rising stars in this article.
There’s a great collegiate scene in the UK, as recently shown in this final between Burnley Bees and CONEL in the British Esports Student Champs 2024 finals.
There’s also been rumblings of the Northern Europe scene moving towards national leagues. Expect more information on the changing Beacons circuit to be announced over the next few weeks.
Oh, and don’t be surprised if we see a big Valorant event hosted here in the coming years. Just a hunch.
The future of UK League of Legends: Big events and bigger personalities
UK League of Legends is in a strange state, a place of extremes.
On one hand, we’ve lost our LAN at Insomnia, and our UK/Nordics regional league doesn’t have the names it once had, like Fnatic and Misfits.
On the other hand, we’ve had major global events take place in London in the past two years: MSI at the Copper Box Arena last year, and the LoL Worlds finals later this year at the O2.
We of course have top broadcast talent, like Medic and Vedius, and content creators, from Caedrel to DonJake, and our national league, the UKEL, back.
Riot seems to like London, so let’s hope for more big events here in the future, too.
Synygy of the UKEL said in our history of UK League of Legends article: “I can say expect to see more and more events happening in the UK (see World Finals this year), more regular activations and Riot presence at existing events, and continued direct support for our ecosystem.
“What I’d like to see more of is the community realising the power they have in making the scene succeed.”
UK ADC player Greggers added:
“Personally I think UK LoL is going to completely die out, with the only thing left being grassroots and fun tournaments. There needs to be a massive change in funding at the top level to make them viable across Europe, and we need teams with established fan bases to come in and drive viewership.”
Greggers, UK ADC
Alex Lyndon, esports student at Staffs Uni, said: “I am a big fan of the likes of Ruddy etc capitalising on UK/London culture in their content and marketing, and I think the UK has so much personality to harness in these sort of competitive ways (football culture being the key example). I think going forwards for esports in general, calling on your team’s foundational cultures is such a good way to build a community that is loyal, as well as creating a brand that has a vibrant personality in it.
“Additionally, with MSI last year and Worlds this year being in UK venues (and things like ESL Birmingham in other titles), there’s HUGE opportunity for strengthening infrastructure for events and tourism that make sure the UK can build a legacy that can thrive, despite us just being a few small islands floating off in the distance compared to other esports hub cities and countries.
Lee Routly, a freelance producer and former associate producer of the UKLC, said: “I hope to see the UK League return to the UK and see it once again given the space to grow. And with Riot’s push into the UK market with international events, I hope they can see the value of the UK market.”
Kieran Holmes-Darby, co-founder of Excel Esports, simply said: “Bring back Forge of Champions across UK and Ireland.”
The future of UK Counter-Strike: Moving on from ESL Prem and Insomnia, with hope for the future
Counter-Strike esports has a storied history in the UK.
It’s been a big 12 months too. Over the past year and a bit, we’ve seen CS2 launch, and UK organisations Viperio and Into The Breach stun the international scene by qualifying for the Blast Paris Major European RMR. Into the Breach eventually reached top eight at CSGO’s last major.
In more negative news, we saw the ESL Premiership for the UK and Ireland close down, and Insomnia Gaming Festival shutter as well.
At the same time, the UK & Ireland Circuit (UKIC) began hosting LAN events, and Epic.LAN continues to be the main LAN tournament series for UK CS teams.
Last month, the Blast Premier Spring Final took place in London, and just the other day, Into the Breach finalised their new roster for 2024, featuring UK personality smooya, who helped them beat TSM 2-1 in their first match together.
Other promising teams include Endpoint, K10, Reason Gaming, Verdant, Viperio, The Last Resort, Coalesce and Exo Clan, plus Fnatic are technically headquartered in the UK. And let’s not forget mezii doing well with Vitality, and up and coming players like Tree60 making a name for themselves.
With all this, and the fact that the UK has some of the best CS broadcast talent, there’s certainly hope for the future, and reasons to get excited about the future of UK CS.
The future of UK Dota 2: ESL One Birmingham is well and truly back
The UK finally got to have another delightful dose of Dota 2, earlier this year, as ESL One Birmingham returned after five years.
18,000 fans packed into Resorts World Arena – the atmosphere was great, the beers were flowing, there were on-site tattoos, memes about Lidl and Greggs, the broadcast talent dressing up influenced by British history and pop culture.
It was a fantastic event, and a welcome return to major Dota tournaments in the UK. There are rumblings this will return as an annual event.
We still have a lack of UK players and orgs involved – OG’s Ari got the crowd roaring at Resorts World, and Tundra Esports regularly take part in top events, but we need more.
UK caster ODPixel told Esports News UK at Birmingham earlier this year: “All the ESL One Birmingham’s have been amazing, the crowds have been amazing. I really hope this continues to be a yearly thing, it showed signs of that when they did 2018 and 2019, obviously there was a break but now we’re back this year.
“It’s been a really good success, the viewers love it, the fans here love it, I’m sure ESL are very happy with how it’s been going, and I hope we come back every year.”
ODPixel on ESL One Birmingham 2024
UK caster Gareth also shared his thoughts on the future of Dota 2, saying: “The landscape is always changing, it’s kind of scary to think about the future and what happens next year.
“This year we lost the DPC (Dota Pro Circuit), which was a very solid three seasons per year. This year we’re a lot more reliant on getting a LAN event gig for work.
“We had Riyadh Masters the past couple of years and now the branding has shifted to the Esports World Cup. I did the first Riyadh event which was incredible because the prize pool was massive. It was competing with TI but TI was still the top good.
“But now, with the battle pass and crowdfunding change with TI, the prize pool has shrunk a bit. The $40m pool was good for headlines and showing off, but for stability and having the scene continue, it’s not ideal to have one event that’s 99% of the prize pool for the year. You want that spread out across multiple events and titles, they have millions spread across 19 games at the World Cup, which is pretty cool to have them all together.”
The future of UK Call of Duty: A bleak outlook or reasons to believe?
“It’s not easy for UK CoD fans to feel optimistic right now,” wrote Jacob Hale in our article on the history of UK Call of Duty esports.
“There is a dwindling number of national players competing at the top level and the fan-favourites who once challenged for world championships now find themselves struggling to find their place in the space, or leaving it entirely.
“It’s not just the players, either. Over four years after the last London event, and a clear preference from the League to focus entirely on North America, fans have been left begging for the league to come back to England for years now, and it feels as unlikely as ever that those prayers will be fulfilled.
“A LAN took place in Middlesbrough, but the venue recently shut down. The most disappointing part about all of this is that, according to some studies, Call of Duty is the most popular esport in the UK, beating out even the likes of Counter-Strike and League of Legends.”
It’s hard not to feel disappointed about UK CoD in recent years. We lost the Call of Duty League UK franchise team, the London Royal Ravens, last year, as they became the Carolina Royal Ravens. They held a few decent events in the UK in the past (pictured above).
As it stands in the 2024 CDL season, only three UK players compete at the pro level: Insight on Toronto Ultra, Ben ‘Beans’ McMellon on Boston Breach, and Byron ‘Nastie’ Plumridge on LA Thieves.
There’s also the feeling that, after years and years of pumping out new games, CoD isn’t quite what it was. There is greater competition, like XDefiant, and for a console nation like the UK, we should have a greater scene than we currently do.
But there is reason to hope. UK esports organisation Noctem recently defeated Saudi Arabian powerhouse Team Falcons to qualify for The Call of Duty Challengers Championship.
The UK has some top Warzone players too.
“Tommey is the most successful Warzone player of all time, and Rated is up there too. But the likes of Ethan ‘Fifakill’ Pink, Liam ‘Jukeyz’ James, and Kacey ‘WarsZ’ Channer are also serious competitors, all in the top 10 for earnings besides WarsZ, who is 11th,” Jacob Hale says.
We also had the World Series of Warzone taking place in London in 2023.
Can the UK see more from CoD esports in the future? Time will of course tell.
And the rest: What about Siege, Rocket League, the FGC and more in UK esports?
We’ve focused on five major competitive titles in this article, but there are of course many more.
The UK has produced some great players in football esports, sim racing and the fighting game community (FGC) in particular.
We were limited with the amount of UK esports history articles we could produce in conjunction with GGBET UK, and we did put a great deal of thought into which ones we focused on.
We decided against running a dedicated article on the FGC, as it is so fragmented with lots of games that make it up. Perhaps we could run a separate FGC series in the future, with one article on Smash, one on Street Fighter, one on Tekken, and so on. With players like ProblemX and EndingWalker, and events like the UK Capcom Pro Tour stop in London later this year, plus a multitude of grassroots events taking place here, there are reasons to stay excited about the FGC in the UK.
As for football esports with the top-heavy FC Pro esports circuit and eFootball events being few and far between, the scene feels like it needs further development. The UK of course has the annual ePremier League, and keep an eye out for interesting one-off events like the Sheffield Wednesday 11v11 Pro Clubs event which took place last weekend.
Games like Rainbow Six Siege and Overwatch have also produced some top moments in UK esports, as evident in these history articles by Haydar Ali and Joshua ‘Jace’ Sharp respectively.
We’ve had the Siege Manchester Major recently, and Nelson Garcia, Associate Director of Esports Live Events and Broadcast at Ubisoft, said there’s a chance for the publisher to host a Rainbow Six Siege esports event in the UK each year going forwards. Wolves and Into the Breach also just qualified for the Siege Esports World Cup, putting the UK on the biggest stages. There are community initiatives too, with the R6 Community LAN that wants to fill a gap UKIN left behind, plus the €75,000 Rainbow Six Siege T2 European esports circuit for 2024/25 was recently announced.
The UK has held major events in Siege, Halo, Fortnite and more over the past year, showing promise for the future of finals here
In Halo, we had the London Major a few weeks ago, won by Faze Clan, and the first University Halo League LAN became one of UK’s most-viewed student broadcasts on Twitch.
UK players continue to compete at the top level in Fortnite, though the scene is shaky in some places, with former Galaxy Racer players and talent recently going public about being left unpaid. Scotland hosted the UK’s first major Fortnite LAN last year, showing that cities other than London and Birmingham are quite capable of hosting large esports events.
Rocket League is another game the UK is passionate about, having had an RLCS London Major in 2018, 2022 and 2024, with UK orgs like Endpoint and Resolve competing in the game.
These are but a few games to mention. There are still so many stories to tell, so many achievements to make, and so many rising stars from the UK to leave their mark in the future.
Thanks to those of you who have read any articles in our ‘past, present and future of UK esports’ series, thank you to BetTodayUSA for powering this content, and we look forward to covering this exciting area further in the years to come.