There is unfortunate news that DreamHack Anaheim 2022 has been canceled. This is due to “increased difficulties in hosting the festival in a qualitative way.” It’s been two years since we’ve had a DreamHack event in America, mostly thanks to COVID-19. It would be a huge event, including a Halo Championship Series NA Regional Championship taking place. Instead, that will take place on the same dates, as a standalone event. We were all very excited for DreamHack Anaheim, but, unfortunately, the 2022 event had to be canceled.

With COVID-19 spreading around America and other problems undoubtedly coming up, hosting esports events and festivals has become difficult to host. It hasn’t stopped everyone, but it’s not the end of DreamHack. DreamHack Atlanta was also pushed back due to COVID, so seeing this happen is not a big surprise. It is, however, incredibly disappointing. 

“We were all really looking forward to our first in-person festival in the United States in two years, so canceling DreamHack Anaheim was not an easy decision,” said Krzysztof Pikiewicz, senior vice president of festivals for ESL Gaming, who spoke about this in an announcement on the site. “However, DreamHack creates a space for our community to connect, explore, win, play, and be themselves through an interactive, gaming lifestyle experience and we simply didn’t feel like Anaheim would be able to live up to that in February. We are now focusing on DreamHack Dallas and DreamHack Summer in June and can’t wait to welcome our community back at those festivals.”

At least the HCS North American Regional Championship will still take place. It just won’t be done live, in person, at DreamHack Anaheim 2022 as it was canceled. We were also supposed to see the ESL Challenger event at DreamHack Anaheim. More information about what will change for ESL will be released later, which we will keep you in the loop about. Tickets will also be refunded.

It’s a letdown to hear DreamHack was pushed back or canceled. The health and safety of our esports players and friends are paramount. This pandemic isn’t going away anytime soon. We hope that DreamHack will come back bigger than ever later in 2022, and we’re going to keep our eyes on it.