Tencent's PUBG Mobile global esports director James Yang said in an interview with Dot Esports that the PUBG Mobile Global Championship (PMGC) 21 grand finals, scheduled to take place from January 23-2021, will not be a LAN event.
The event will adopt the "semi-LAN" format with 16 finalists competing on a single server. To ensure that participants have an even playing field, some teams will fly to a specific location to compete in the grand finals.
Yang did not reveal where the contest will take place, but said it would be announced "soon." There will be no stages in the venue and the teams will compete in a closed environment. The format may see some changes depending on the status of the pandemic.
Yang said last July that the company was "working hard" to keep PMGC as a LAN event, while the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted those plans. “We expected to do LAN events at the end of the year, but even now I didn't expect COVID to be this strong,” he said.
As a result, PMGC's league stage has been turned into an entirely online event. The teams were divided into East and West to avoid ping inequality. Twenty teams compete in each region.
The PMGC league stage will take place from November 30th to December 24th, with 15 teams and one invited team qualifying for the grand finals. The grand finals will take place from 21 to 23 January.
Yang also declined to comment on who would be the team invited to the grand finals. He said it will be announced soon.
The total prize pool of PMGC 2021 is $6 million. This makes it the highest prize pool in PUBG Mobile esports history for a single event.
Even with some other esports events taking place as LAN events this year, it's not surprising to see Tencent taking no risks after the PMGC 2020 Finals. Last year, the finals were supposed to take place at the Coca Cola Arena in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. All teams flew to Dubai to compete. However, just a day before the event, Tencent announced that some players have tested positive for COVID-19 and all teams will compete in isolation from their hotel rooms to prevent further spread of the virus.
“We couldn't let teams take risks this year,” Yang said.
