Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, Six Invitational 2021 will go on as planned, according to an announcement from Ubisoft.
The event will not take place in its usual location of Montreal and instead will be held in Paris, where Ubisoft’s new studio for the EUL resides, as does one of its development branches.
The 2021 version of the event will feature 20 teams from four regions: LATAM, APAC, NA, and EU. Only six people per team will be allowed—five players and a coach or a sub.
The prize pool for the event has not been released yet. The bare minimum is $500,000, which will be supplemented by 30% of the revenue from the SI 2021 Battle Pass. The maximum amount the prize pool can reach for the event is $3,000,000.
The Invitational will cap a tumultuous year in Rainbow 6 Siege. With international competition nonexistent due to the global pandemic, several scenes, the North American one, in particular, took massive hits.
Specifically, in the span of a year, Evil Geniuses, Luminosity, Tempo Storm, and eUnited bowed out of the scene, effectively bucking their rosters out of the newly-formed NAL due to the league’s confounding licensing rules. Reciprocity left the league as well, but transferred its license and roster to Oxygen Esports, allowing its roster to retain a spot in the NAL.
SI 2021 will be the first international competition in Rainbow Six Siege since SI 2020. North America’s November Mini-Major was played on LAN in a bubble environment at the HyperX Esports Arena in Las Vegas, showing that if everyone can get to the same place, it’s possible to pull off a LAN tournament.
SI’s Group stage will begin Feb. 9 and run until Feb. 14. The Playoffs stage will begin on Feb. 17 and run to Feb. 21.
The event will also feature Twitch drops in the leadup to SI and during the event.
