Shroud makes grand return to esports as a Valorant pro

Four years after retiring from playing CS:GO professionally, Michael "Shroud" Grzesiek is back on the esports scene as the latest addition to the Sentinels' Valorant roster.

The Sentinels announced his return on their Twitter with a short reveal video. Shroud hasn't played competitively since July 2017—his last tournament was as a member of Cloud9's CS:GO team, placing second during ESL One in Cologne. Prior to that, he led the team to victory four times across two years and is widely regarded as one of the most talented FPS players in the world. He stepped down from the main lineup in August 2017 before announcing his retirement from professional CS:GO and his departure from Cloud9 in April 2018.

He's been streaming full-time since then, taking a deal with Mixer (ha, remember that?) before returning to Twitch in 2020 to half a million viewers. A large portion of that time has been spent with Valorant, a game he's been not-so-subtle in voicing his preference for over CS:GO. He called the game "the first tac shooter in a long time that has a company behind it that truly gives a damn" in 2021, adding that as long as Riot kept it fresh it "won't go anywhere."

The announcement video now has over six million views on Twitter, marking just what a big deal this is for the competitive FPS community. It even got a cheeky response from the CS:GO esports Twitter, simply saying "wrong game bro."