MANILA: The Philippines is preparing to showcase its gaming talent at the Esports Nations Cup in Riyadh later this year, after Filipino players qualified to compete for at least two titles in the inaugural competition.
Saudi Arabia will host the inaugural ENC in November. The cup is set to become a biannual, nation-based esports event in which hundreds of players from more than 100 countries will compete for 16 esports titles across four weeks.
This year, it has a prize pool of $20 million for players and coaches.
A five-member Philippine team has qualified for the ENC’s League of Legends tournament, while another Philippine team secured a direct invitation to compete in the Valorant tournament after placing among the top 10 in the game’s official rankings.
“The Esports Nations Cup is, like, the biggest competition aside from the Olympics because there are countries from all over. You’re not limited to Southeast Asia or Asian countries competing. You have European countries, American countries. It’s interesting for us,” Marlon Marcelo, executive director of the Philippine Esports Organization, which was established in 2011, told Arab News on Saturday.
“It’s a big opportunity for the country to showcase how good we are in the field of esports. In the grand scheme of things, we have an advantage, specifically in mobile games. That’s where we excel.”
The Philippines’ national esports team, Sibol, also recently qualified for the Mobile Legends: Bang Bang competition at the 2026 Asian Games in Japan, which will take place before the Riyadh tournament. The country’s back-to-back participation in global esports events show the increasing popularity of video games in the Southeast Asian nation, where games that can be played on a mobile device have proven more popular than console games over the past decade.
With so many esports athletes set to fly to Saudi Arabia towards the end of the year, Marcelo said the Kingdom is becoming “the main hub and the league there is performing well. There are no major flaws when they host big events.”
The Philippine Esports Organization is hoping to see Filipinos supporting in person when the athletes compete in Riyadh, as the Kingdom is home to hundreds of thousands of overseas Filipino workers.
“I know there are a lot of Filipinos there. So when we reach the semifinals or, hopefully, the medal matches, we hope to see their support on-site,” Marcelo said.
In Riyadh, the Philippines will be competing for the top title in League of Legends, a multiplayer online battle arena video game, widely recognized as one of the most popular games in the world, with over 117 million active users playing monthly.
Filipino players are also competing in Valorant, another team-based game that has gained immense popularity in Southeast Asia in recent years.
Philippine teams are still trying to qualify to compete in other games, including MLBB, DOTA 2, Honor of Kings, and PUBG Mobile, for which qualifying rounds have yet to conclude.
