Notable Overwatch players retire as Valorant enters closed beta

A wave of notable Overwatch players announced their retirement recently, right when Valorant is entering its closed beta. While most of them didn’t specify Valorant as the reason, it’s a safe assumption that the new FPS is at least somewhat responsible.

Overwatch players retiring

Most of the Overwatch players retiring aren’t household names. The biggest is Timo “Taimou” Kettunen, a Finnish DPS player who played for the Dallas Fuel in the Overwatch League’s inaugural season. Taimou announced his retirement from the game several days ago on Twitter. Since then, he has made multiple tweets about Valorant.

GGs @PlayOverwatch . This game and the team behind it gave me everything I have in life now and I will always be grateful for it.

See you all!

— Taimou (@DF_Taimou) April 6, 2020

Other notable players include Kevyn “TviQ” Lindström, Damien “HyP” Souville, Daniel “Gods” Graeser, Carter “Carter” Smith, Emil “eMIL” Sandgren, Finley “Kyb” Adisi, and John “Wanted” Lin. Several more gamers, such as streamer Brian “Kephrii” St. Pierre, have also announced that they are taking a break from Overwatch.

Should Blizzard be concerned?

Honestly, Blizzard shouldn’t be overly concerned quite yet. None of the players retiring were in the Overwatch League. They were mostly either streamers or Contenders players. Most of Overwatch‘s biggest names have not announced that they will jump ship.

One certain thing, however, is that DPS players will not have to wait over ten minutes in a queue to find a game in Valorant. If the game lives up to its hype and does blow up, Overwatch League players may make the transition after the 2020 season ends and their current contracts expire.

If things do wind up going south, Blizzard has Overwatch 2 to fall back on. The new installment to the franchise will undoubtedly bring significant changes to the competitive scene. So, if the game does start to see more players leaving, Overwatch 2 should help bring in some fresh faces.

As of right now, Valorant is in closed beta, and we’re going to be hearing a lot about it in the coming months. Expect to see more notable names retire their current games and jump on the bandwagon.