In the early hours of today, the League of Legends community spread rumors about the location change for Worlds 2021 from China to Europe. Recently, Riot Games officially confirmed this rumor.
According to John Needham, Riot Games is very proud and happy that Worlds 2020 went smoothly with a record viewership in League of Legends history. However, Worlds 2020 was still one of the most challenging and difficult Worlds that Riot Games has ever experienced.
With vaccines being widely distributed globally this year, Riot Games hoped that everything would return to normal so that Worlds could be held smoothly in China. But with the Delta variant and travel inconveniences, Riot had to change plans to ensure maximum safety for the participating players, ensuring that as many players as possible could attend (not restricted due to travel issues).
Thus, Worlds 2021 will be relocated from China to Europe. Currently, Riot Games has not yet chosen a specific city, but this information will be announced by the end of this weekend or early next week.
As for the international League of Legends community, many are quite pleased that at least Worlds 2021 will still take place and that Riot Games is still working hard to ensure player safety. Additionally, many have jokingly mentioned that hosting the event in Europe will also help the community follow the “bootcamp” phase of the world’s top teams more closely.