Over 2,000 elite players from across the world are competing fiercely for the record-breaking prizes at the 2025 Esports World Cup (EWC) in Riyadh, capital of Saudi Arabia. The 2025 EWC opened on Thursday evening with a star-studded opening ceremony. Running until August 24, the event features more than 2,000 elite players, 25 tournaments across 24 leading titles, and a record-breaking prize pool of over 70 million U.S. dollars. For the first time, the tournament brings together the world's top 200 clubs to compete across multiple game titles in a unique cross-title format. The grand event features the world's most popular games such as Dota 2, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG), Valorant, and Chess. At the heart of the competition is the Club Championship, where teams accumulate points across multiple games to become the EWC club champion. Shotlist: Riyadh, Saudi Arabia - July 10-12, 2025: 1. Various of Esports World Cup (EWC) competitions in progress; 2. Various of Esports fans taking selfies, getting autographs from players; 3. SOUNDBITE (English) Magnus Carlsen, Norwegian chess grandmaster: "I wouldn't know where it's the game, at the moment, I think I will be equally poor at everything."; 4. People entering esports arena for Valorant; 5. Various of Valorant competition in progress, spectators cheering; 6. SOUNDBITE (English) Teri Zhang, senior director, Esports Business Department, Tencent: "I think EWC is not just a tournament, it's like a platform. I think [for] the clubs and companies from China, they would have more opportunity for collaboration with others, especially with overseas companies or clubs."; FILE: Riyadh, Saudi Arabia - Dec 2022 7. Various of national flags of Saudi Arabia, cityscape, traffic. [Restriction - No access Chinese mainland]