Genshin Impact goes esports: University Invitational UK tournament announced

Competitive Genshin Impact is becoming reality. The game has found its way into the UK’s collegiate esports scene in the first-ever Genshin Impact tournament hosted by GinxTV.

Genshin Impact is a popular Action RPG for PCs, consoles, and mobile devices created by Chinese game developer HoYoverse (formerly miHoYo). The title became famous quickly after the release and despite the fact that it doesn’t have standard multiplayer features, received the “Best 2021 Mobile Game” award. 

As a part of the gameplay, players can travel around each other’s worlds and conquer the dungeons together. However, they can’t pass main story quests in tandem. Nevertheless, that didn’t deter National Students Esports (NSE), the official body for collegiate esports in the UK, from organizing a Genshin Impact tournament.

University Invitational UK 

University Invitational UK is considered the first-ever Genshin Impact esports tournament. The event will see 11 teams from various British universities fighting for an £11,000 prize pool. With details about the format yet to be revealed, there are many questions about how the competition will run. The game itself is mostly PvE, however, there’s a way for teams to compete via challenges series.

University Invitational UK is divided into three stages: 

• Stage 1: Team Registration (May 9-16)
• Stage 2: Qualifiers (May 16-20)
• Stage 3: LAN finals in London (May 28)

The tournament will feature students from the following UK universities: 

• Imperial College London
• King’s College London
• Brunel University London
• University of Surrey
• University College London
• University of Roehampton London
• University of Warwick
• Queen Mary University of London
• London South Bank University

NSE joins forces with HoYoverse

Following the announcement, NSE also revealed a partnership with HoYoverse, aiming to provide more Genshin Impact gaming opportunities for the UK collegiate student community. According to the press release, NSE will run various Genshin Impact-related challenges and activities and even give the community an opportunity to organise its own events.

Alex Coulson, Managing Director at NSE, commented:

“We’re excited to be running Genshin Impact activity this year as it means we get to give more to our existing community and also to students outside of the core esports community. Gaming and esports has so many benefits to students, from technical skills, social skills, to general entertainment so we’re looking forward to seeing the students getting stuck in.”

Header: HoYoverse