Former Cloud9 CS:GO player Sonic retires

South African CS:GO pro Aran “Sonic” Groesbeek has hung up his mouse and keyboard at the age of 23 after a period on the sidelines.

The rifler and AWPer had been inactive since October 2021, when he stepped down from Extra Salt’s active CS:GO lineup to “recollect his thoughts.” And today, he announced that he’ll no longer play professionally.

“I’d like to announce that I’ve decided not to return to professional Counter-Strike,” Sonic said on Twitter. “It was an incredibly hard decision. Instead I’ll be returning to America to work toward my other passion which is business.”

The South African player played for Extra Salt between December 2020 and October 2021 as part of a lineup that had previously played for Cloud9 during January 2020 and October 2020. Other than those two organizations, Sonic also played for Envy, ATK, Bravado, Denial, and eNergy.

Sonic retires without having won too many tournaments other than smaller LANs, such as the DreamHack Mumbai Invitational in December 2018 and Telkom DGL Masters in October 2016. He also won DreamHack Open March and DreamHack Open June, two online North American tournaments, with Extra Salt in 2021.

Sonic has not yet revealed whether he’ll stay in esports or move to a completely new career path. CS:GO players such as Austin “Cooper” Abadir, Peter “ptr” Gurney, and former teammates Ian “motm” Hardy and Johnny “JT” Theodosiou wished Sonic the best moving forward via Twitter replies.