FISSURE Playground 3 to take place in China

FISSURE will head to China for the first of their three 2026 events.

FISSURE has revealed further details regarding their Playground 3 event, which is set to run April 20-26. Included in the announcement were the host country, prize distribution, format and qualifier information.

The event will take place in China, with the city to be revealed at a later date, and feature a $1,500,000 prize pool. Of that prize pool, $1,000,000 is split between players and organizations based on their placement in the tournament, whilst $500,000 is set aside for loyalty bonuses, handed out for competing in multiple FISSURE events, and participation bonuses for top eight-ranked VRS teams.

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Format

The 16 teams in attendance will be split between two groups of eight, whereupon they will play out a double-elimination, BO3 group stage. The top team from each group will progress to the semi-finals, whilst second and third head to the quarter-finals.

The playoffs will utilize a single-elimination BO3 bracket, with the grand final being BO5.

Prize distribution

Teams from the top eight of the VRS ranking who participate will receive participation bonuses as follows:

1. $60,000
2. $50,000
3-4. $40,000
5-6. $20,000
7-8. $10,000

In addition, teams receive "loyalty tokens" based on their attendance of FISSURE events, with each token being worth $16,667. Teams must attend at least two of the three FISSURE events in 2026 to activate their payout, which will be made at the end of the year.

Invites and qualifiers

Of the 16 teams in attendance, 15 will come via the global VRS, whilst one will be a team qualified from Asia.

There will be two China open qualifiers, one Oceanic open qualifier and one Asia open qualifier. The top team from each qualifier will progress to a closed qualifier, where the top five teams on the Asia VRS sub-ranking will join them. The top team from the closed qualifier will proceed to the main event.

The VRS ranking that will be used for invitations and seedings is the March 2 2026 edition.