ESL FACEIT Group has announced that the ESEA league system will be moving to the FACEIT platform. While the league is moving to FACEIT, it will retain the same slots and structure.
ESL FACEIT Group has stated that the reason for the change is to offer the community the latest anti-cheat technology from FACEIT. In addition, the ESEA league and the FACEIT platform will be united at the same time to provide a better and fairer experience.
ESL league system to be moved to FACEIT
Milos Nedeljkovic, the Director of Product Marketing at ESL FACEIT Group commented, “Over the last year we have been in constant dialogue with our community and it has become clear that moving the ESEA League to the FACEIT platform could offer significant benefits to the grassroots Counter-Strike ecosystem around the world.”
ESEA LEAGUE 🤝 FACEIT
We are excited to share that ESEA League is moving to FACEIT, with Season 46 registrations to begin early August!
Dive into a new team league experience we are preparing for you here 👇https://t.co/D4S7dU3drK pic.twitter.com/0oDSJ8vF45
— ESEA (@ESEA) June 23, 2023
“By working together as a team to leverage the anti-cheat and platform technology we’ve been developing for years, we’ll be in a better position to provide a more reliable, balanced and enjoyable team league experience for our players.” For a long time, many people in the community have been vocal about switching to FACEIT because the ESEA client often goes on strike, which has led to a lot of frustration.
Problems with ESEA Client
One of these problems occurred at the IEM Rio Major South America Open Qualifiers, which had to be moved to FACEIT due to several problems on the ESEA platform. While EFG has not yet announced the change of platform for the qualifiers, it is expected that other events organised on the ESEA system will follow suit and switch to FACEIT.
Preparation for CS2
Another reason for the switch is CS2, which is much anticipated. However, there could be several challenges in the process. Therefore, EFG has stated that they will move to the FACEIT platform, which already has a working CS2 integration and is up to the technical challenges.
While Valve has stated that Counter-Strike 2 will be available this summer, it is not known if CS:GO will continue to be playable after that time, if Counter-Strike 2 will be playable on specific platforms, or if there will be a simple transition in the summer.
The merger also comes with an integration of ESEA and FACEIT subscriptions. All players with an active League Pass subscription on ESEA will automatically receive the new ESEA League Pass as well as FACEIT Premium as long as they keep their League Pass subscription active on ESEA. ESEA has also announced a pre-season circuit for July with a prize pool of $36,000 to ensure users get the most out of the new ESEA League Pass subscription on FACEIT.