Four teams, HOTU, 1w, 5 Stars Esports, and The Huns Esports, will compete in the finals.
Dubai, UAE, 28th October 2026: The Moscow Cyber Games 2026 Counter-Strike 2 (CS2) finals will take place on October 31 and November 1 as part of the second Moscow International Game Week. It welcomes representatives from the gaming industries of Qatar and Türkiye.
A total of 956 teams entered the qualifiers: 840 from Europe and 116 from Asia. The open qualifiers ran from August 12 to 18, 2026. The closed Swiss-system stage, held from August 22 to September 1, featured 16 European and eight Asian teams. The finalists are HOTU, with players from Russia and Kazakhstan; Russian team 1w; and Mongolian teams 5 Stars Esports and The Huns Esports.
The tournament is part of the Valve Regional Standings (VRS), and its results affect invitations to international CS2 tournaments and Majors. With the final taking place at the end of the ranking cycle, Russian teams will have an opportunity to earn points and strengthen their position in the global rankings.
The event will also bring together companies and industry representatives from the MENA region and Türkiye. The Qatari delegation is expected to include Faizan Faisal, Head of Publishing at Digital Dunes, a mobile game developer and publisher whose titles target audiences in the Middle East and North Africa as well as international markets. Türkiye’s gaming industry is expected to be represented by Ahmet Çetinli, founder of HOGO Games, and Mustafa Yaya, co-founder and Game Director of Blackburne Games Studio.
For companies from the region, Moscow International Game Week offers an opportunity to present their work, explore the Russian games market and connect with potential partners. Russia has 92 million video game players and ranks 12th worldwide in consumer spending on games. The event will bring together developers, publishers and investors from 20 countries.
Minh Le, one of the co-creators of Counter-Strike, headlined the first Moscow International Game Week in 2025. Speaking about Russian developers, he said: “Back in the 90s, I played a huge number of flight simulators, and in the West they are made very rarely. It’s great to see that Russian developers continue to evolve this genre and build games based on it — they have an excellent understanding of how it works.”
This year, Ned Luke, the actor who played Michael De Santa in GTA V, will attend the event. Luke performed the character using his voice, face, and movements, and acted out Michael’s stunts in a motion-capture suit. In 2025, he returned to the role to voice Michael again in an update to GTA Online.
