Gamers rejoice: A new Alienware esports arena will open in the Texas Union Underground fall 2023.

The arena will be equipped with at least 30 Alienware gaming stations, console stations and production space for streaming and shoutcasting. The project is currently in the demolition phase and will open this fall, said James Buckley, director of facilities and operations for the University Union.

“We envision (the esports arena) as being an outgrowth of the lounge space and very much in the wheelhouse of the Union’s of being a gathering spot,” Buckley said. “There’s a lot of students here at UT that do game, and they’ve never had a central place to call home. And this, I hope, begins to meet that need.”

Austin Espinoza, esports student program coordinator, said the student demand for gaming space outnumbers the available space in the Alienware Longhorn Esports Lounge. Over 1,500 people have played in the lounge in a total of 4,000 gaming sessions, Espinoza said. 

“Once the Longhorn esports lounge opened up with just 10 desktops and three laptops, our biggest complaint has been there aren’t enough stations for students to utilize, and there’s a long waitlist to get access to the current space,” Espinoza said. 

Buckley said the pool tables in the soon-to-be esports arena will remain in the space.  

“We will still have billiards available, we just will not have as many,” Buckley said. “ We will have five billiard tables in place for students to use, we’ll continue to have foosball, air hockey, things like that.”

April Douglas, the tournament organizer for Longhorn Gaming, said the esports arena will allow Longhorn Gaming to expand the number of in-person rounds and events students can participate in. 

“We had to do this online group stage to whittle down the numbers (of players) so it’s less chaotic when we go in person,” said Douglas, an electrical and computer engineering junior. “The arena is going to bring an extra 30 computers, so we can use both the lounge and the arena to have 40 people play at a time if we want to. So it’s going to really bump up like the scale of the tournaments we can run.”

Expanding the in-person gaming space available will allow students to build relationships that would otherwise be limited to online, Espinoza said.

“When students get together and get to play in person, there’s a lot more connection being built among community members,” Espinoza said. “It’s really nice when people get together for the first time on hardware that is capable of playing their favorite games and their favorite activity to bond with people.”