Dota 2’s The International heads home to Germany in 2025

Valve has unveiled Hamburg as the host city for the 2025 edition of Dota 2's The International. The pinnacle Dota tournament will be held in the Barclays Arena in early September.

It is a long-awaited return to Germany for the Aegis of Champions where it was first forged during the inaugural The International back in 2011 at Cologne, and the fourth time TI will be held in Europe.

Valve made the announcement on Jan. 21. It's quite out of the ordinary, with Valve normally revealing the host city for next year's TI on the final day of the previous edition of the event before Team Liquid hoisted the trophy. However, TI 2024 came and passed, yet no such announcement was made.

But finally, we have the host city for 2025 — Hamburg. "The stars have aligned and the stage is once again being set for cosmic battle — and this time, that battle has returned to where it all began," read the announcement.

It was August 2011 when TI became reality for the first time at GamesCom in Cologne. Natus Vincere stamped themselves into the history books at the Koelnmesse, taking home the monstrous million-dollar prize — a prize few believed was actually real.

Fourteen years on, and the Aegis will once more be fought over in Germany. 16 teams via direct invite and two stages of qualifiers will descend upon Hamburg. Details such as ticket prices, exact qualification methods, or how teams would be invited weren't revealed yet.

But, given it's only January, there's still plenty of time for teams to start working towards TI 2025 in Hamburg. Several tournaments are about to kick off in the next few months. FISSURE Playground is just days away, where we'll see the first tier one Dota 2 event for 2025 play out.

After that, it's the second edition of BLAST Slam and Season 25 of DreamLeague. By then, we'll surely know more about how teams — and fans — will be able to make the TI pilgrimage to Hamburg.

That's all for now. Stay tuned to esports.gg for more Dota 2 and TI 2025 news.