Ukrainian esports tournament organiser StarLadder has announced its return to organising top-tier Counter-Strike esports events in 2025 under its famous StarSeries brand.
The company has announced dates for four new tournaments in 2025 and 2026, with the first taking place in late May 2025.
StarLadder is a well-known esports tournament organiser that made a name for itself through StarSeries Counter-Strike events. StarSeries’ first edition was held in 2012 and was won by ESC Gaming. The tournament remained a fan-favourite for the next seven years, and saw the likes of NAVI, ENCE, Evil Geniuses, Ninjas in Pyjamas and Fnatic crowned as champions.
StarLadder’s last large-scale CS:GO event was the StarLadder Berlin Major 2019, after which the company shifted towards other games such as PUBG with the PUBG Continental Series and the VALORANT EMG League in Riot’s first-person shooter.
Similarly to PGL’s recent announcement, StarLadder also noted Valve’s new CS2 licensing rules as one of the main reasons to return. Due to the new rules, teams will no longer be able to partner with tournament organisers to participate in their leagues from 2025. Interestingly, StarLadder also said that ‘a significant increase in the number of professional teams’ is one of the main reasons to return to the Counter-Strike esports ecosystem.
The announced StarLadder tournaments are close to the recently announced PGL tournaments. For example, StarLadder’s second event of 2025 will take place between September 12th and 21st, and the fourth PGL tournament of 2025 will start on September 29th.
StarLadder also announced that each of its events will feature 16 teams, and qualifiers will be held around the world.
In addition, the company noted that “we are approaching the time when several parallel events in different parts of the world will have worthy line-ups of teams and will generate interest”, which implies that some of its events will be held at the same time as other high-profile CS2 events in other parts of the world.
