Esports has a long and unfortunate history of not exactly observing equality as far as gender disparities go – by and large, professional video gaming is dominated by men, and it’s quite exceptional for women to reach the big leagues.
This is for a variety of reasons – though, as players who have faced women like Geguri in Overwatch and StarCraft II’s Scarlett can attest, it’s not lack of talent or skill. Often, it’s opportunity, interest and environment that are the biggest hurdles. This is why some esports organisations and providers, go out of their way to make sure that women have a space in the esports world, without having to fight tooth and nail to be heard.
© Rix.gg
Organised by Rix.GG, Valorant’s Huntress Trials is specifically aimed at women and people from marginalized gender groups. Rix.GG is working together with the British esports association to host the tournament over the last weekend of January.
The event has a prize pool is £2000, half of which will go to the winning team. 16 teams in total will be participating. Half of them will make it to the finals, and 4 will receive prize money. So far, none of the teams have been confirmed.
The tournament will be held in a double elimination format with an upper and a lower bracket competing concurrently. Tournament entry is open to (according to the hosts) all openly femme-identifying or marginalized genders; Including but not limited to cis-gender women, transgender women, femme-presenting or femme-identifying as well as femme-adjacent marginalised genders.
Registration is open at the following link. There are still spots open for you to try your luck in competitive esports.
Especially in Britain, the grassroots esports scene is pretty strong. In no small part because of the British Esports Association actively promoting grassroots esports. This is especially benefitial for marginalised groups and semi-pro and casual esports fans.
Morgan Ashurst, the marketing manager at the BEA spoke specifically about the Women in Esports initiative that is now going into its third year:
“Since launching the Women in Esports initiative in November 2019, it has been one of our main aims to play a part in increasing female participation in esports. We’re thrilled to be partnering with Rix.GG to host The Huntress Trials, to not only provide opportunities to females within the industry but to showcase talent!”
Jorden Dakin-White, the Head of PR at Rix.GG spoke about the partnership for the Huntress Trials tournament: “We are deeply committed to growing the grassroots esports scene here in the UK, which is why we are so excited to announce this tournament partnership with Women in Esports! We hope this event is the first stepping stone to make esports more diverse, inclusive, and female-friendly in the UK and EU.”
We at EsportsDotNet hope that the next superstar team comes from this initiative and takes the European Valorant scene by storm.
Read next: Are female esports competitors taken seriously?
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