First details about The International 2025: dates, venue, and more
On January 22, Valve announced the dates and location for The International 2025, the biggest tournament of the Dota 2 season. After 13 years, one of the most iconic esports events is returning to Germany!
The International 2025 will take place from September 1 to 14 in Hamburg, with the final playoff matches being held at Barclays Arena. As in previous years, the tournament will feature 16 of the world’s top teams, with the roster made up of invitees and winners from both open and closed regional qualifiers. Valve hasn’t yet disclosed the exact dates for the qualifiers, but they’re expected to take place in mid-summer.
Germany hosted the very first International in 2011, when the tournament series was launched in Cologne. Since then, it’s made two returns to Europe: The International 2021 was held in Bucharest, and The International 2024 took place in Copenhagen.
Germany is known as one of Europe’s major esports hubs, though Hamburg isn’t as famous for hosting large-scale tournaments as cities like Cologne, Berlin, Frankfurt, or Leipzig. The last big Dota 2 event in Hamburg was ESL One Hamburg 2017, and it’s been a while since then.
Aside from The International 2025, 11 other international LAN tournaments with prize pools of at least $1 million have already been announced for this year. None of them will be held in the summer, so they won’t interfere with teams preparing for the World Championship. In the meantime, fans are still waiting for the announcement of Riyadh Masters 2025, which will likely be part of the Esports World Cup series, as usual.
The most-watched tournament in the series so far is still The International 2021, which took place during the COVID-19 pandemic. Its broadcasts peaked at 2,741,514 concurrent viewers. To this day, no other International has hit the 2,000,000 viewer mark at its peak.
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