The Esports Nations Cup (ENC) is accelerating its rise as the next major pillar of global competitive gaming, with the Esports World Cup Foundation announcing the addition of Chess.com, MOONTON Games, and SNK as the tournament’s latest Official Publishers.
Their entry strengthens what is quickly becoming one of the most strategically significant initiatives in modern esports, a nation-versus-nation format designed for long-term scalability, publisher alignment, and global sports-style prestige.
With these three new partners joining Founding Publishers EA, Krafton, Tencent, and Ubisoft, the ENC now brings together seven major global publishers, each contributing iconic IPs, massive player communities, and established competitive ecosystems.
From a business and industry perspective, this multi-publisher coalition represents a rare high-trust framework in esports. It signals a coordinated effort to build a stable, recurring international competition with shared incentives.
A Publisher-Led Competitive Esports Framework
Unlike traditional tournaments where publishers play a limited role or act independently, the ENC’s structure is being co-developed from inception with both its Founding and Official Publishers.
This means that the qualification paths, competitive formats, scoring systems, and integrity protocols are being built collaboratively, ensuring unified global standards, long-term stability for players, federations, and national teams
In addition to a scalable model that can be replicated every two years, and Cross-publisher visibility and shared investment in a single global property.
For publishers, this is not just a content showcase, it is an opportunity to embed their titles into a new, Olympics-style ecosystem centered on national representation, a format proven to drive engagement far beyond traditional esports audiences.
A New Layer of Esports, National Identity, and Global Reach
While the Esports World Cup focuses on club-based competition, the ENC introduces a parallel competitive narrative rooted in national identity, opening the door for National federations and governments to invest in structured teams, Publishers to expand reach in emerging markets, Brands to align with country-level activations, and Fans to rally behind national players and talents.
The ENC’s qualification system reflects this ambition, combining global rankings, regional qualifiers, wildcard opportunities, and solidarity slots that ensure broad participation
The ENC is set to share opportunities with all major regions, including North America, South America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and Oceania.
This balance of competitiveness and inclusivity is designed to cultivate global visibility while maintaining competitive relevance, a challenge many large-format esports events have struggled to address.
Strategic Expansion Backed by the Esports World Cup’s Momentum
The ENC leverages the industry footprint of the Esports World Cup, currently the largest multi-title esports event in the world, transforming its club-driven strategy into a national-team ecosystem.
For EWCF, this deepens its long-term mission, building sustainable esports pathways, professionalizing competition formats, and creating platforms that attract both legacy publishers and emerging IPs.
Ralf Reichert, CEO of the Esports World Cup Foundation, emphasized this publisher-centric approach:
“By partnering closely with publishers, we can make the Esports Nations Cup truly player-centric… With the seven partners announced so far as close collaborators, we can activate players worldwide and deliver a Nations Cup that feels earned for players and real for fans.”
For sponsors and brands, this alignment reduces the risk typically associated with fragmented esports structures and opens the door for multi-year, cross-title activations anchored in a dependable global event.
The Esports Nations Cup will debut in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in November 2026, before moving to a rotating host model designed to bring the event to different cultures and regions around the world.
This two-year rhythm mirrors traditional global sports structures, a significant step toward normalizing esports as a legitimate international competitive discipline.
A Transformative Moment for Game Publishers and the Esports Ecosystem
The addition of Chess.com, MOONTON Games, and SNK signals strong publisher confidence in the ENC’s vision. For the esports industry, it represents a rare alignment across genres, from mobile MOBAs and fighting games to strategy and tactical titles, all united under a single competitive platform.
As more publishers are expected to join, the ENC is positioning itself not just as another tournament, but as a long-term global esports institution, one capable of mobilizing national pride, expanding commercial opportunities, and redefining how publishers engage with international competition.
