The Esports Foundation has officially announced that its docuseries on athletes, the Esports World Cup: Level Up, is set to return with a second season on June 26, 2026. The five episodes of the series will drop together on Amazon Prime Video.
The series is directed by Emmy Award-winning filmmaker R.J. Cutler and is produced by This Machine, the content division of Sony Pictures Television. This season will feature a highly respected roster of esports athletes, with the highlight being the legendary chess champion, Magnus Carlsen.
The upcoming season takes a definitive “cinéma vérité” look behind the scenes of the 2025 Esports World Cup held in Saudi Arabia, where elite organizations and players competed for a historic 70 million-dollar prize pool and the overall Club Championship title.
Filming for the five-part series took place over seven weeks on-site in Riyadh, as well as shoots in other international sites like the United States, the United Kingdom, and Indonesia, to explore the private lives of competitors away from their esports environments.
The main attraction of this new season is the competitive evolution of classical chess legend Magnus Carlsen, who represents Team Liquid. The series chronicles Carlsen’s absolute genius levels of prowess in classical chess and his subsequent transition into the modern esports ecosystem to face a younger generation of prodigies.
Other prominent profiles include Fnatic’s Valorant star Jake “Boaster” Howlett, charting his unorthodox professional pivot from an aspiring actor to a top-tier esports icon, and Chinese fighting game veteran Zeng “Xiao Hai” Zhuojun, who struggles to balance international Street Fighter esports with the demands of newfound fatherhood.
The documentary also explores deep personal hurdles and triumph over adversity. The storylines will follow Team Vitality’s Mobile Legends: Bang Bang star Vivi “Vivian” Indrawaty as she confronts severe childhood trauma while competing in the tournament’s premier women’s bracket.
Additionally, the series documents the rapid, unexpected international ascendancy of the all-Mongolian Counter-Strike 2 roster, The MongolZ, and tracks the defensive campaign of Team Falcons’ Call of Duty: Warzone champion Kasimili “Soka” Tongamoa as he manages fractured relationships with former teammates alongside a turbulent domestic life.
Season two will also highlight an array of crossover appearances from global cultural and sporting icons who attended the Riyadh festivities, including football legend Cristiano Ronaldo, musician Post Malone, Formula One driver Lando Norris, skateboarding pioneer Tony Hawk, and Brazilian football stars Kaká and Ronaldo Nazário.
Besides this, the EWC 2026 is set to happen from July 6 to August 23 in Paris, France.
Featured image credit: Esports Foundation
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