Sonic Announces Retirement From CS:GO

Aran “Sonic” Groesbeek announced on Wednesday, April 13, that he is retiring from professional Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. With that, the 23-year-old hangs up his mouse and keyboard, ending his eight-year-long career.

Sonic ended his eight-year-long career as a professional CS:GO player on Wednesday. The 23-year-old announced the news on social media, unveiling that he will now pursue his other passion – business.

“I’d like to announce that I’ve decided not to return to Professional Counterstrike,” said Sonic.

“It was an incredibly hard decision. Instead, I’ll be returning to America to work toward my other passion: business. Thank you to the teams who considered me and those who follow me.”

Sonic retirement, while big news, is hardly surprising, knowing that the South African CS:GO pro hasn’t been active since late 2021. He was last a part of Extra Salt, which he left in October 2021.

Sonic has since not recorded a single official match, meaning he has been out of action for five whole months. And he hasn’t once hinted about a possible return to pro play.

Sonic started his professional CS:GO career way back in 2014, when he joined eNergy eSports, with who he won Orena Logitech Invitational 2014, his first professional tournament. Sonic remained with eNergy eSports through June 2015, helping the team claim two silver medals at Electronic & Gaming Expo 2015 and the ESWC 2015 – South African Qualifier.

The eNergy eSports roster left the team in 2015 to compete under a new banner, Bravado Gaming, where Sonic spent the majority of his career. The South African pro joined Bravado in June 2015 and remained with the organization until January 2019.

With Bravado, Sonic dominated the regional scene, winning eight out of 11 tournaments the team attended by the end of 2016. The team continued with strong showings in 2017, winning six of nine events Bravado attended throughout the year.

But while Bravado were dominant in their region, the team continuously fell flat at international events, such as World Electronic Sports Games 2016 and World Electronic Sports Games 2017. But even though Bravado couldn’t deliver internationally, the team continuously appeared in international events, putting the spotlight on the young AWPer, who quickly gained recognition as a big talent.

Due to Bravado’s success domestically, Project Destiny was born, which moved Bravado’s lineup to north America. And the project came to fruition at the start of 2018.

In North America, Bravado were not nearly as successful, but Sonic continued to be a standout player for the lineup as the team began to develop their abilities in the region. Steadily, the team improved and started producing notable results internationally. Most notably, the team made the finals of DreamHack Open Winter 2018.

In 2018, the Bravado lineup moved to ATK and signed new talent in Ricky “floppy” Kemery and Josh “oSee” Ohm. It marked the start of Sonic’s most successful period of his career and a gateway into the big leagues.

Most notably, ATK impressed at ESL Pro League Season 10 Finals, which led to the ATK roster being signed by Cloud9. Unfortunately, the team started to struggle in the online era, leading C9 to dismiss the lineup at the end of the year.

But Sonic and co. got another chance to prove themselves in 2021 when Extra Salt picked up the lineup. At Extra Salt, Sonic achieved plenty of success domestically, but results started to dip towards the end of the year, ushering in the disbandment of the roster at the end of 2021.

Having failed to find a team since he got cut from Extra Salt at the end of 2021, Sonic decided to call it quits on his CS:GO career. With that, Sonic ended an eight-year-long career that saw him dominate the South African scene and make a splash in North America.