Apex Legends is coming to this year’s X Games for the first EXP Invitational in August, and ESPN has revealed the full list of competitors who will take the stage when the games begin.
Boasting a $150,000 prize pool, the two-day Invitational will start on Aug. 2 and feature 20 of the biggest names in esports, including Cloud9, Team Liquid, and Complexity. Fifteen of the teams received invites, while the remaining five competitors earned their spots through online qualifiers held in June.
The 20 teams will face off across 12 matches, but the exact format has yet to be revealed. Previous Apex tournaments, such as the first Twitch Rivals: Apex Legends Challenge and the FACEIT Pro Series: Apex Legends, followed a “pub-stomp” format where teams queued up for public matches to accumulate points over a set number of games.
Esports made its first appearance at the X Games in 2014 after MLG teamed up with ESPN to bring Call of Duty: Ghosts to the annual extreme sporting event. Other esports, such as Halo 5 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, followed in later years. The EXP Invitational marks the return of esports to the event after a three-year hiatus.
Fans will be able to watch the action live at 8pm CT each day from multiple platforms, including the ESPN app or the ESPN Esports and EA Twitch channels. A recap show will highlight the best moments from the tournament on Aug. 10 at 9pm CT on ESPN2 for those who are unable to watch the games live.
