Veteran CS:GO in-game leader nitr0 parted ways with Team Liquid and retired from CS for the second time in his career on May 31. Since then, many fans have been wondering if he’ll continue his pro player career or pivot to content creation. On June 22, he gave his stream viewers a clearer picture of his competitive future.
Nitr0 said on May 30 before his last match with Liquid that he’d start streaming to see what that path brings to him, but left the doors open to competing in other games. Some have forgotten now, but the 27-year-old also made history in VALORANT, the game he played after retiring from CS:GO for the first time in 2020.
While nitr0 didn’t specify he was open to VALORANT offers before retiring from CS:GO on May 31, for some, it was clear he was referring to a possible return in Riot’s FPS. Nearly a month has passed since then, and on June 22 he told his viewers that he’d be interested in playing VALORANT again, and explained why he wasn’t clear about it before.
“When I was done with CS, I didn’t want to include the word VALORANT in it because it makes a lot of people salty,” nitr0 said on June 22 during his live stream. “But, I’m interested. I’d like to compete in this game again.”
Nitr0 played for 100 Thieves in Riot Games’ FPS between August 2020 and December 2021, and most notably helped them to reach the semifinals of VCT Masters Three Berlin in September 2021, a $700,000 international event.
The reason why nitr0 retired from CS:GO in 2020 and then again this year was because of the grueling travel schedule. He lives in the U.S. with his family, and had to keep traveling to compete in European CS:GO tournaments. Now that he has a second child, that issue was exacerbated.
If nitr0 does make a comeback in VALORANT, he’d get to spend most of the year in North America playing in VCT Americas or the NA Challengers league, and would only have to travel in case he qualified for the few international tournaments in Riot’s FPS.
