Alisports have announced their plans for the upcoming edition of the World Electronic Sports Games, with the first national qualifiers set to start soon.

During a press conference which was held today in Sepang, Malaysia, WESG 2018-2019 season has been announced. The tournament is expected to continue with its "Olympic-style" format that limits teams to having members from a single country, with the long qualifying road to the final event, starting with national qualifiers and followed by regional finals, also seeing a return.

For this season, WESG has introduced invites for the final event

As of now, the prize pool for CS:GO has not been announced, but with a total prize pool of $5.5 million for all games which includes the likes of DOTA2 and Starcraft 2, the payout for the best Counter-Strike teams is expected to, once again, be a hefty one.

This time around, the Global Finals, which will be held in March 2019, will also feature four invite slots, which could see the level of competition at the tournament rise.

A total of 36 teams will compete at the main event, with the slot distribution as follows:

Americas - 6 teams

Europe - 11 teams

APAC - 13 teams

Africa - 2 teams

Invitation - 4 teams

Alongside the main CS:GO competition, female CS:GO teams will also be competing at the final event, with eight squads set to be present at the tournament:

Americas - 2 teams

Europe - 2 teams

APAC - 4 teams

At the press conference, tournament representatives also implied that this WESG season is set to have more offline events compared to previous years, with certain national qualifiers set to be held offline, and winners of the events earning a spot at the Grand Finals directly, skipping regional finals.

As of today, signups for the SEA qualifiers are open, with first matches set to be held in August. The SEA/ASEAN offline regional grand finals are planned for November 2018 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

The offline finals for both the United States and Canada have also been announced, with the tournaments being hosted by WorldGaming Network. The USA tournament will take place at the Santa Anita Park racetrack in Los Angeles mid-November, while the Canadians will compete at the Enthusiast Gaming Live Expo on October 26-28.