The world of esports is alive and well, and Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition has brought an even greater bit of attention to a franchise that drastically needed an update to bring it into the modern gaming world. While titles in the franchise were still highly popular in the fandom itself, it wasn’t until recently that the franchise got a surge of players and attention, which has led to a higher number of tournaments being held.
Red Bull Gaming has partnered with the teams behind Age of Empires to hold a new event, the Red Bull Wololo tournament!
Best of all, the tournament is open to the public! There are two qualifiers open to sign up for, links to which you can find in the tweet embedded above. All in all, it’s a pretty huge tournament with 256 contestants being accepted to the first qualifier this weekend on Saturday and Sunday, April 18th and 19th respectively. The next weekend, the 25th and 26th, will see another 256 contestants giving each other their best to move on.
The format of both qualifiers is the same, with the schedule listed as follows:
Round 1, with 256 contestants, will take place Saturday at 1:00 p.m. GMT. These rounds will continue every hour for the second and third round as the contestant pool gets halved to 128 and then to 64. At 5 p.m. GMT, the fourth round will begin at the round-of-32, with the round-of-16 at 7 PM to close out the first day of the tournament.
The next day will bring four matches, beginning at 1:00 p.m. GMT and conducting matches through the day. The winners of the fourth round and beyond will have qualified to the main event, which will apparently consist of two different brackets of sixteen.
Once everything is done with the qualifiers, the main event will take place at the very end of April and in the first weekend right at the start of May. Thursday, April 30th will be the first match of the Round of 16, with the second on Friday, May 1st. The quarterfinals will be Saturday, May 2nd, with Sunday holding the semifinals and grand final. The main event’s coverage will always kick off at 2:00 p.m. GMT.
With the tournament open to the public, we’re sure to have an incredibly interesting and diverse tournament on our hands, but only the best of the best are going to make it to the final tournament. If you think you have what it takes, head over to the qualifier sign-ups and give it your best shot!
