The Call of Duty: Mobile Garena Invitational has been canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic, Garena announced today.
The Garena Invitational was planned to be the biggest esports event for the mobile game since its release with a prize pool of $65,000. It was set to be held at the Garena World 2020 event in Bangkok, Thailand. Eight teams from six regions of Southeast Asia were supposed to participate.
The tournament was earlier postponed due to the coronavirus, but now, it’s been canceled altogether. Garena said that this decision was made even after it “explored alternative ways to hold the tournament online.” Due to lockdowns and other measures imposed in the participating regions, it was “not feasible for players to gather with their teammates and match officials locally.” Garena also said that the health and well-being of its players, fans, partners, and staff were its top priority.
Although the decision to cancel the tournament may come as a disappointment to fans, more events for the game are expected in the future. When announcing the invitational in January, Garena’s regional producer for Call of Duty: Mobile, Mike Chang, said that he hopes this is the first of many more tournaments to come this year. Fans can thus expect more tournaments for the game when the pandemic ends.
The ESL Championship in Malaysia for CoD: Mobile, on the other hand, will be conducted online on April 11 with four participating teams.
