SEA Games 2027 to feature record 13 esports medal events in Malaysia

The Southeast Asian Games Federation has approved a record 13 esports medal events for the 2027 SEA Games in Malaysia.

The list was signed off at the SEAGF Executive Committee Meeting No. 3 on Friday, October 30, chaired by Dr Nur Azmi Ahmad, deputy president of the Olympic Council of Malaysia.

According to Bernama, member nations joined by online conference and raised no objections to the sports selected.

The programme is split into 11 men’s events and two women’s events, with no mixed category.

That marks a clear break from Thailand, where Free Fire and FC Online were both contested as mixed team events at the 2025 Games.

The host federation had flagged this expansion well before the October meeting.

In February, Malaysia Electronic Sports Federation president Muhammad Naim Al Amin Saharudin told Bernama that his federation would propose more than 10 titles, including racing simulators never contested at the Games before.

He added that more than half of those titles were Malaysian gold medal targets and that publishers had been consulted during the selection.

The biggest change from Bangkok is the shape of the lineup.

Thailand ran just four titles across six events, namely Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, Arena of Valor, Free Fire and FC Online, and not one of them was a PC game.

Only MLBB and Arena of Valor survive, and even Arena of Valor loses its women’s event.

Free Fire and FC Online disappear completely, which leaves Garena, the publisher of Arena of Valor and Free Fire, with a single men’s event after its games filled half of the Thai programme.

The new arrivals lean heavily on the Asian Games instead.

Honor of Kings, PUBG Mobile, MLBB, Identity V, Gran Turismo 7 and eFootball all featured on the Olympic Council of Asia’s 11-title programme at Aichi-Nagoya.

That overlap means federations can carry their Asian Games squads, and the experience they gained in Japan, straight into Malaysia.

PUBG on PC is the outlier and a first for the SEA Games, bringing a PC title back after Thailand’s all-mobile edition.

Identity V, the asymmetric horror game from NetEase, is also making its debut, although it appears only in the men’s column for now.

Two of the events still carry a question mark, because the list names Gran Turismo 7 for one racing medal but gives no game for the solo and duo “E-Racing Track” events.

Thirteen events is a record for SEA Games esports by some distance.

The Philippines staged six medal events when esports debuted in 2019, Hanoi raised that to 10 at the 2021 edition, held in 2022, Cambodia offered nine in 2023 and Thailand cut back to six.

Last December, Thailand and Vietnam finished level at the top of the esports medal table with two golds and one silver each.

Vietnam swept both Arena of Valor titles while the hosts won Free Fire and FC Online, so three of those four golds came in events missing from the 2027 list.

The Philippines and Malaysia, by contrast, keep the events they won.

According to Moonton, the Philippines beat Malaysia 4-0 in the men’s MLBB final for a fourth straight gold, while Malaysia’s women edged the Philippines 4-3 to win the country’s first women’s MLBB title.

Indonesia, which won PUBG Mobile team gold in 2021 and 2023 but left Bangkok without an esports gold, gets that title back.

Thailand, meanwhile, arrives as the reigning Asian Games PUBG Mobile champion after winning gold in Aichi-Nagoya in September.

For the hosts, the calculation is simpler, since MESF proposed its titles with Malaysian medal chances in mind and Malaysia already holds the women’s MLBB crown.

MESF also said a venue in Sarawak had been identified, although organisers have not yet named the esports site publicly.

Those 13 esports events will sit among 473 across 43 sports when the Games open on September 18, 2027, across four clusters in Kuala Lumpur, Sarawak, Penang and Johor.