Games of the Future 2026: Schedule, prize pool and disciplines revealed

Wasif Ahmed

Editor

Publish Date: March 12, 2026

Games of the Future 2025 Counter Strike 2

Highlights

Games of the Future 2026 is taking place across five venues in Astana, Kazakhstan.
The tournament has a unique format, combining phygital sports with esports. In phygital sports, athletes compete in a game's real world equivalent.
The 2026 edition will feature eight disciplines with a $4.75 million prize pool.

The Games of the Future 2026, set to take place in Astana, Kazakhstan, has revealed its schedule, prize pool, and disciplines for the upcoming phygital esports competition.

The tournament, organized by Phygital International, will happen from July 29 to August 9 across multiple venues in Astana. This includes the Barys Arena, Beeline Arena, Athletics Sports Complex “Qazaqstan,” Alau Ice Palace, and the Ushkempirov Martial Arts Palace.

Eight disciplines will take place at Games of the Future 2026 with a total prize pool of $4.75 million up for grabs. The organizer said in a release that it expects 900+ athletes from over 50 nationalities to attend.

“Astana is the perfect stage for the next chapter of The Games of the Future. Kazakhstan has a deep sporting culture and a young, digitally-connected population that embodies exactly what phygital competition stands for,” said John Hewitt, the international marketing and communications director at Phygital International.

What will be the game titles in Games of the Future 2026?

The eight disciplines at Games of the Future 2026 have been split into two categories: phygital sports and esports. This includes the following:

Phygital Football
Phygital Basketball
Phygital Shooter
Phygital Dancing
Phygital Fighting
MOBA competition on PC
MOBA competition on mobile
Battle Royale

The difference between phygital titles and esports is that the former adopts a hybrid format where athletes compete in physical sports along with their video game equivalents.

Image source: Phygital International

While the precise list of titles hasn’t been announced, we can speculate based on the Games of the Future 2025, which took place in Abu Dhabi, UAE.

Last year, Counter-Strike 2 (phygital shooter), Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves (phygital fighting), Just Dance (phygital dancing), UFL (phygital football), 3on3 Freestyle (phygital basketball) rounded out the phygital titles. We can expect a similar list in 2026 as well.

The esports titles, on the other hand, included Dota 2, Mobile Legends: Bang Bang (MLBB), and Fortnite.

Notably, the 2025 edition featured 11 disciplines and a $5 million prize pool. The event was one with controversy, though, as Dota 2 team, Monkey Business withdrew from the competition after facing criticism for participating. This was due to the organizer’s alleged ties to the Russian State.