Dota 2’s The International 10 tournament has been moved to a new country

After over a year of delays, Dota 2’s upcoming tournament, The International 10 has been moved to a new venue in a new country. The event, which was originally supposed to happen in Stockholm, Sweden, will now be held in Bucharest, Romania, Valve announced on Wednesday.

Valve started working with Sweden to host the 2020 tournament a year ahead of time in 2019. As the summer-set event got closer, it became clear that it would have to be put on hold due to the coronavirus pandemic, which pushed the tournament from 2020 to 2021 — something many tournaments and events like the Olympics and the European Soccer Championships faced as well. After the delay, the tournament was eventually rescheduled for August 2021.

However, according to a post from Valve last month, despite several assurances over the previous year, the Swedish Sports Federation voted not to accept esports into its federation and Valve’s game was denied classification as an elite sporting event, meaning that Visa applications for players outside of the European Union would not be approved.

Instead, players’ entry into the country would be subject to the approval of individual border agents. This called teams’ abilities to field their full rosters into question and made it impossible to guarantee the tournament’s integrity, so on June 21, Valve chose to delay the tournament and move it to a new location.

On Wednesday, Valve announced that The International 10 — Dota 2 Championships will officially be held at the Arena Nationala in Bucharest, Romania starting on Oct. 7 and concluding on Oct. 17. The tournament’s new venue can seat up to 55,000 fans normally, but it remains to be seen how Valve will set it up for The International — though the developer did say that ticket information will be available soon.