MUMBAI: When esports trades club colours for national flags, the stakes get personal. The Esports Nations Cup 2026 is set to make its global debut in Riyadh from November 2 to 29, 2026, adding a fresh, nation-first twist to competitive gaming.

Announced by the Esports World Cup Foundation, the new tournament is designed to sit alongside the club-based Esports World Cup, giving players the rare chance to represent their countries and fans a reason to cheer with identity and pride firmly in play.

The numbers are hard to ignore. ENC 2026 is backed by a $45 million, three-part funding model, aimed at strengthening the entire esports ecosystem. Of this, 20 million dollars will be paid directly as prize money to players and coaches across 16 game titles. A further $5 million has been earmarked as incentives for esports clubs that release their professional players for national duty, with payouts linked to player performance.

Another $20 million will flow through the ENC Development Fund, supporting national teams with logistics, travel, operations, marketing and long-term pathway development signalling that this is as much about future pipelines as present-day podiums.

The competition introduces a placement-based prize framework that keeps things simple and transparent. Every qualified player is guaranteed prize money and at least three matches. A gold-medal finish earns $50,000 per player, silver takes $30,000, and bronze pays $15,000. The same placement pays the same amount across all titles, whether solo or team-based, with team payouts scaling by roster size. Coaches are rewarded alongside players for identical finishes.

“National teams bring a powerful new layer to esports, rooted in identity and pride,” said Esports World Cup Foundation CEO Ralf Reichert, adding that the model is designed to reward performance while remaining fair and sustainable for players, clubs and national programmes alike.

While Riyadh hosts the inaugural edition, the ENC is planned as a biennial event with a rotating host-city format, taking nation-based esports to major cities around the world.

Several titles are already locked in. Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, Trackmania, and Dota 2 have been confirmed for 2026, with more games expected to be announced shortly.

For esports fans, it is no longer just about who plays best but which nation plays proudest.

MUMBAI: It seems Amazon’s gaming division has finally met its final boss. After nearly eight years at the helm, Christoph Hartmann is reportedly packing up his controller and heading for the exit. The news, first reported by Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier, marks the end of an era for the man who steered the New World and Lost Ark ships into the choppy waters of the MMO market.

While Hartmann’s departure might look like a simple game over, it is actually part of a massive tactical pivot. Amazon appears to be retreating from the costly, high-stakes world of traditional AAA console and PC development. Instead of chasing the next blockbuster epic, the company is looking skyward by focusing its energy on Amazon Luna, its dedicated cloud gaming service.

This leadership shuffle coincides with a broader wave of 16,000 redundancies across the Amazon empire. For gamers, the most poignant bit of lag is the news that New World: Aeternum is set to go offline permanently in January 2027. It appears the company is no longer interested in building digital worlds from scratch, but rather in providing the cloud-based pipes to stream them.

Hartmann leaves behind a legacy of taking Amazon from a struggling studio to a genuine, if brief, contender in the PC gaming space. Looking forward, the hardware focus is shifting entirely to Luna infrastructure. Rumours suggest the new-look Amazon Games will be heavily bolstered by AI-integrated experiences rather than traditional software. Whether this move is a masterstroke or a massive misclick remains to be seen. For now, the Amazon Games office is looking a little bit emptier, and the cloud is looking a lot more crowded.
 

MUMBAI: Cricket gaming is about to get a lot more crowded in a good way. Lightfury Games has announced that its upcoming title E-Cricket will feature more than 600 officially licensed international players, making it one of the largest player rosters ever assembled for a cricket game and a first of this scale for an Indian studio.

The licensing has been secured in partnership with Winners Alliance, an athlete-centric commercial solutions firm that works closely with the World Cricketers’ Association. The deal allows LightFury to bring real-world cricketers into the game as fully playable characters, strengthening its ambition to blur the line between live cricket and virtual competition.

The roster spans major and emerging cricketing nations, including Australia, New Zealand, England, South Africa, West Indies, Afghanistan, Ireland, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Uganda, the USA, Canada, the Netherlands and Italy. Big international names such as Chris Gayle, Joe Root, Rashid Khan, Pat Cummins, Jos Buttler, Travis Head, Trent Boult, Quinton de Kock, Sikandar Raza and Andre Russell are all part of the line-up, with more players set to be added in future phases.

Each licensed cricketer will be recreated with individual player models, overall ratings, and data-driven attributes designed to mirror real-life strengths, tendencies and match impact. Rather than relying on static numbers, the game uses progressive performance systems, allowing players to evolve based on in-game situations and decisions.

Beyond the numbers, E-Cricket is being built with broadcast-style presentation, dynamic AI-led commentary and tactical batting and bowling systems, aiming to ensure that no two matches play out the same way. Built on Unreal Engine 5 and designed mobile-first, the title promises high-fidelity visuals and physics tailored for handheld play.

Currently in development and slated for release in 2026, E-Cricket has already generated strong buzz following its tech demo at GDC in early 2025. With a global roster, real-world authenticity and ambitions well beyond the boundary rope, LightFury Games is signalling that Indian studios are ready to play in the big leagues of global sports gaming.