Dota 2 The International 2023 is coming to Seattle

pcgamesn.com:

Dota 2 The International 2023 is headed for Seattle. The annual esports tournament for Valve’s MOBA is both the culminating moment in the Dota 2 year and also traditionally able to boast the biggest prize pools in all of competitive videogame tournaments. Now, its twelfth instalment is heading to Washington state as the TI 2023 date is marked down for October.

Book your calendars now, then, because TI 2023 will take place in October, high up in the north-western corner of the United States. The announcement comes as a short video from Dota 2 developer Valve, and features a mysterious figure whistling and jangling a set of keys as they stride through the darkened corridors of a storage facility.

Unlocking a cage door, they pull on a pair of pristine white gloves, give the Aegis of Champions – the ultimate prize for winners of the tournament – a light dust off, and place it gently into a decorative box, and then again into a wooden crate. Upon this package is stamped a label reading “Priority Package: Ship to Seattle, October 2023.” There’s also a QR code, although this simply leads to the Dota 2 website.

Of course, there’s much more than just the Aegis, and the glory that bestows, awaiting the eventual winners. Even with the lower overall prize pool that TI 2022 attained, the victorious Tundra Esports brought home $8.5 million for its troubles. At its peak just one year prior, TI 2021 winners Team Spirit managed to snag a quite staggering $18.2 million for victory.

That 2021 prize pool – over $40 million in total – is still the largest overall winnings offered for a single esports tournament by a sizable margin, and even 2022’s much lower $18.9 million total still makes it the sixth-highest (with only previous