IEM Melbourne 2025 announced

ESL has revealed that Counter-Strike will be heading back to Australia in 2025 as the Rod Laver Arena will be hosting the IEM Melbourne for the first time ever. The $300,000 event will take place between April 21 - 27, 2025, inclusive of the Group Stage.

Most recently, Australia hosted IEM Sydney in October 2023, one of the first CS2 events which saw packed crowds at the Super Aware Theatre and till date remains as FaZe's only CS2 LAN title.

The tournament's Group Stages will kick off from April 21, with the Playoffs getting underway from April 25. The Group Stages will have 16 invited teams with the teams battling out in a double-elimination bracket. The top 3 teans from the Gropus move to the Playoffs.The Playoffs, at the arena, will be a 6 team single-elimination bracket with the quarter-finals and semi-finals being BO3 while the Grand Final is set to be a BO5 affair.

The tournament will have no qualifiers with the teams being invited through the global VRS rankings. The top 10 teams will get the first invites along with the top 2 teams from each region (Americas, Europe and Asia) through the VRS rankings as well. ESL has stated that if an invite is declined, the next-ranked team would be invited. The cut off date for the team invites has been currently given as February.

Tickets for the event will go on sale on January 23, 2024 and will be available on Ticketek.com.au.