Esports World Cup: Level Up Season 2 — Everything You Need to Know

Prime Video's Emmy-winning docuseries Esports World Cup: Level Up returns for a second season, going deeper into the human stories behind the world's largest esports competition. Here's everything we know from the official press materials and reports.

Premiere Date and Director

Season 2 premieres June 26, 2026, exclusively on Prime Video, with all five episodes available to stream that same day .

The series is directed by Emmy-winning filmmaker R.J. Cutler, known for Billie Eilish: The World's a Little Blurry and the Netflix documentary Martha. Cutler also directed Season 1 . Produced by Sony Pictures Television's This Machine, the series is distributed in over 240 countries and territories .

Featured Competitors and Personalities

The docuseries follows players, clubs, and families as they navigate the pressures and ambitions of the 2025 Esports World Cup . Confirmed subjects based on press reports include:

• Jake "Boaster" Howlett — Fnatic, VALORANT
• Vivi "Vivian" Indrawaty — Team Vitality, Mobile Legends: Bang Bang
• Kasimili "Soka" Tongamoa — Team Falcons, Call of Duty: Warzone
• Xiao Hai — Kuaishou Games, Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves / King of Fighters
• Garidmagnai "bLitz" Byambasuren — The MongolZ, Counter-Strike 2
• Magnus Carlsen — chess grandmaster

The series also covers club CEOs, coaching staff, and families as they navigate the high-stakes tournament .

Scale and Prize Pool of the 2025 Esports World Cup

The 2025 Esports World Cup, which serves as the backdrop for Season 2, was a massive undertaking:

• Dates: July 8 – August 24, 2025, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia .
• Prize pool: At least $70 million — the largest combined prize pool in esports history, surpassing the 2024 edition's $62.5 million . Sources report slightly different exact figures: Reuters states "exceeding $70 million," Wikipedia's article on the 2025 Esports World Cup lists $71.5 million, and some trackers calculate $70.45 million when including the Club Share Program . The prize pool includes $38 million for individual game tournaments, $27 million for the cross-game Club Championship, $5 million for qualifying events, and $450,000 in MVP awards .
• Scale: 25 tournaments across 24 titles over seven weeks, featuring games including League of Legends, VALORANT, CS2, Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, Call of Duty: Warzone, Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves, Dota 2, Apex Legends, and chess . More than 2,000 elite players participated .

Release Format Difference from Season 1

One notable change from the first season is the release format:

• Season 1 (June 2025) used a weekly rollout — one episode premiered each Friday .
• Season 2 adopts a full-season drop — all five episodes become available simultaneously on June 26, 2026 . This allows viewers to binge the entire series at their own pace.

What the Docuseries Covers

According to the Esports World Cup Foundation CEO Ralf Reichert, the documentary "takes you closer to the people behind those moments: their pressure, their ambition, their families, and the narratives that make esports meaningful for a new generation" . Cutler himself has described esports as "one of the most dynamic cultural movements of our time" and said the series aims to reveal not just the competition but the players' lives, dreams, and sacrifices .

For viewers interested in the intersection of high-stakes competition and personal storytelling, Esports World Cup: Level Up Season 2 promises a bingeable, character-driven look at the biggest esports event ever staged.