EA’s Jasmine Chiang Talks Worlds Colliding and Exciting Challenges with ALGS at EWC 2025

The Apex Legends Global Series is hitting the Esports World Cup in a new way for the tournament’s second iteration. For the 2025 calendar, the Midseason Playoffs have been integrated into the EWC, raising the stakes even higher for the teams competing in the world’s biggest esports tournament. For the ALGS, not only does this open up new opportunities by bringing the Playoffs to the EWC’s global stage, but it introduces some unique challenges. 

EA’s Jasmine Chiang, Apex Legends Esports’ Global Brand Marketing Lead, spoke to us about the collaboration between the ALGS and the Esports World Cup Foundation (EWCF), and how relying on each other’s strengths has allowed content to shine. ”In partnering with EWC, we gained so many resources and a team of really awesome, passionate people all about the same mission and vision,” Chiang said.

“We actually gained a lot of people to help with the planning process. Was it challenging? Of course — you're dealing with new people. It's a totally different region, time zones come into play, so very, very early morning meetings and late meetings. In a way, it was challenging because it was new, but it was also very exciting because we got to do so much more than we've done at previous events.”

Logistically, the Esports World Cup is a huge undertaking, at any level of the process. There’s 25 tournaments across 24 different games, all taking place across seven weeks. During that, the EWC will see 2000 players from 200 Clubs, from over 100 countries — anyone who’s spent even a week in an admin job would get heart palpitations. It’s no surprise, then, that in order for things to run smoothly, collaboration between the EWCF and publishers is key.

“It's been great that [the EWCF] trusts us as the experts of Apex Legends and what we do,” Chiang said. “If we have content suggestions, if we tell them, ’Oh, these are the storylines we should follow,’ they're very receptive because they have seen our content. They told us they were a fan of our content when we first started, so that was awesome to see.

It was very collaborative all throughout, and they have their strengths in the region, we have our strengths with our game. I think all of that will shine, especially as you see throughout the event, I hope it comes through.”

The Midseason Playoffs take place during the 2025 Esports World Cup opening week, alongside games that are new to the tournament this year, such as VALORANT. Thanks to that, fans have been treated to some special crossovers between teams and players that may have only happened because of the EWC. FNATIC, for example, had both their Apex Legends and VALORANT rosters competing during the same week, and offered fans a unique joint Meet & Greet with both teams. Bringing Apex Legends’ YukaF and VALORANT’s Boaster together, alone, has been enough to send fans into a gleeful frenzy.

When asked if there had been an intentional effort to have players across esports interact with each other, Chiang said that players didn’t need the encouragement: “It's funny, because that's been happening very naturally. You've seen all the photos on Twitter of the VALORANT pros taking photos with the Apex pros.

The esports scene is small enough that everyone knows of everyone, if not a second connection to somebody. It's really cool to see the worlds collide. And I do think a lot of esports fans around the world are excited to see their favorite pros from different ecosystems coming together. And honestly, all their favorite games coming together under one roof to compete. I think it's a very unique and special experience.”

Even across organisations, the admiration and respect for each other as pros has been in full view. Apex pro Unlucky, part of the defending EWC Apex Legends Champion team Alliance, snapped a photo with Fnatic’s VALORANT IGL Boaster in what he dubbed a “fanboy moment.”

“When I saw Unlucky, he was still talking about it the next day and how excited he was to meet these pros. It's happening so naturally,” Chiang added.

The ALGS Midseason Playoffs Finals take place on July 13, 2025, where the top placing 20 teams will compete for their share of the impressive $2,000,000 prize pool. The Match Point Format returns to its original form; a team must hit 50 points and secure a first-place finish to be crowned the overall champions. During EWC 2024, the required points were increased to 60.