Third Episode

DISTR3CT Event Cube in Óbuda was once home to the High Life disco and its thumping speakers. This time the noise came from PC fans. First, a whole table of tangled patch cables had to be sorted out. The handwritten note on the FREE LOOT table said it didn’t matter whether you called it loot or food, as long as everyone knew they could eat it.

Anyone who sat down for Prop Hunt probably didn’t get up again until dawn. The five CS2 tournament winners each got a gold medal with a shooting target on it, and the sparkling wine went to them too. Congratulations!

The award for most creative setup goes to a Steam Deck that ran Left 4 Dead 2 from a dock balanced on a shoebox. Someone even dusted off Call of Duty 2, and the VR headset usually drew more spectators than players.

At night SCP: Secret Laboratory came out and the lights went off in several rooms, leaving only monitors and RGB strips glowing. Eventually just a handful of us were left in the main hall among the empty pizza boxes. Thanks for being there!

Setting up in the long, narrow room: several people untangle patch cables, a heap of grey cable on the wooden table and a MENTAVILL box further back

The sunlit main hall: participants at laptops and monitors around round tables, a player in headphones in front and two people chatting on their feet at the back

Players in headphones sit side by side along the wall in the narrow room, Counter-Strike 2 running on their monitors

About ten people chatting around a silver car in the car park outside the building, seen from the staircase, someone in a Ctrl-Alt-GG T-shirt in the middle

Three people by a white wall: a curly haired participant in the middle settles a VR headset into place, the one on the left explains with both hands, and someone in a printed T-shirt watches from the right

Participants in headphones around the round tables of the main hall, a player in glasses smiling at the monitor in front and a bald participant at a laptop next to them

Five people at the white tables of a smaller room, a participant in headphones smiling at the camera in front and a PC case glowing blue at the back

A player in glasses studies the Call of Duty 2 main menu on the monitor, others gaming behind at the tables along the wall of the narrow room

Gamepad in hand: a participant with earphones laughs at the screen in front, three others playing further along the long table

The CS2 tournament winners: the five players stand side by side with gold medals on red and white ribbons, one holding a bottle of sparkling wine, while someone behind them raises a hand

With the lights off, only the glow of monitors, laptops and a blue-lit mouse mat shows in the dark room, part of the DISTR3CT sign visible through the window