Call of Duty challengers partners with FACEIT for 2024 season, introduces updated format

Heading into the 2024 season, Call of Duty (CoD) Challengers, the competitive series for emerging esports talent, has unveiled its updated format. The series will now collaborate with online gaming platform FACEIT to host Challenger and Elite qualifiers.

Activision Blizzard’s grassroots ecosystem, CoD Challengers, offers aspiring professional players opportunities to enter the Call of Duty League. GameBattles, the previous host for CoD Challengers, ceased operations on January 15th, prompting the transition to FACEIT.

Unlike GameBattles, the new Challenger tournaments on FACEIT will not utilize the FACEIT Anti-Cheat system. However, the platform assures the competitive CoD community of a consistent and high-quality experience through its experienced tournament operations team.

The 2024 CoD Challengers season kicks off with the Challenger qualifiers, followed by eleven online Challengers Cups starting on January 20th. These events are open to players from North America, Europe, LATAM, and the Asia Pacific region.

In addition to the online events, the 2024 season will feature two Challengers Opens hosted by the Boston Breach at Major I and the Toronto Ultra at Major II. CoD Challengers’ Elite tournaments will expand to three seasons for both North America and Europe, each with two groups of six teams.

The season will culminate in the Finals, featuring 16 teams from all regions, qualifying through the regional leaderboard, Opens, or the Last Chance Qualifier.

FACEIT, an online competitive gaming platform founded in 2011, has been part of the Saudi-backed ESL FACEIT Group (EFG) since 2022. Throughout 2023, EFG increased its presence in the global esports ecosystem, partnering with HLTV.org and acquiring esports technology provider Vindex.

The collaboration with CoD Challengers is another step in FACEIT’s growing influence in the esports landscape.