The world’s top athletes and cyber athletes will compete in 21 innovative disciplines at this year's Games of the Future in Russia's Kazan.
The basic program includes 16 disciplines while the extensive one includes five.
At their core, the games reflect the ‘phygital’ concept, which is a combination of classic physical sports, digital sports and technologies.
To beat other competitors in a phygital discipline, one has to excel not only on the football field, a circuit or a boxing ring, but also in a favorite video game. Points gained on both stages are summed up, hence why participants need special training and the ability to quickly switch between different challenges.
Games of the Future have five different “challenges”:
“Sports” challenge combines traditional sports and their digital counterparts - phygital-football, phygital-basketball, phygital-hockey, phygital-martial arts, phygital-racing, phygital-skateboarding, phygital-BMX and indoor cycling.
“Tactical” challenge includes video shooters and laser tag competitions. “Battle” challenge merges popular battle arena games like MOBA (multiplayer online battle arena) and World of Tanks, plus additional endurance simulators.
“Speedrun” challenge puts competitors against one another in a classic speedrun video game, as well as a real-world obstacle course.
“Technical” challenge will see athletes compete using drones and robots (controlled by participants in a dance simulator). This challenge also involves virtual reality (VR) games, cybathletics and sports programming.
The event also includes tournaments in phygital football, phygital basketball, phygital skateboarding, Dota 2+super final, MLBB+super final, dance and VR simulators.
Uram Extreme Park will platform competitions in phygital-BMX and virtual cycling. Tatneft Arena will determine the champion in phygital hockey. Ak Bars Martial Arts Palace will hold phygital martial arts battles, and the Kazan Tennis Academy will gather participants in the “Tactical” challenge, like CS2+laser tag, Standoff 2+laser tag and Warface+laser tag.
Kazan’s IT Park will host sports programming tournaments, the World of Tanks+superfinals and Speedrun+superfinals. The city’s Labor Reserves stadium will hold the games’ drone race. The Kazan Circus will platform robot battles, and Innopolis will embrace cybathletics. The phygital race will take place at Sochi circuit.
The organizing committee shared that the participants are going for the top prize, which made its way from Moscow to Baikonur (in November-December, 2023), and then made it to the International Space Station. This year, the trophy will come back from space and will be presented at the Games of the Future. The total prize fund stands at $10 million.
During the games, Kazan will host foreign delegations and over 600 media representatives from Russia, China, the UAE, Vietnam, Cuba, Italy, Syria, France, South Africa, Latin America and other regions. The competition will be broadcast to 200 venues on each continent, including Brazil, Chile, China, India, as well as CIS nations.