Hiko may be ready to return to Counter-Strike after spending the last three years of his esports career in VALORANT.
The North American legend said during a livestream on May 30 that he misses CS and wants to come back to Valve’s FPS once CS2 releases worldwide this summer.
“If you haven’t seen me in a while and you’re wondering where I’ve gone, I’ve been playing VALORANT for the last couple of years,” Hiko said on stream during a technical pause while playing CS:GO. “But I think I’ll make a comeback to CS once CS2 comes out. I’ll probably start streaming CS2 a lot. I do kinda miss this game [CS].”
After Hiko stopped playing CS:GO competitively in 2019, he became a full-time streamer until 100 Thieves came knocking on his door in June 2020 and offered him a spot on its VALORANT lineup. Hiko basically abandoned CS:GO to hone his skills in VALORANT at that time, and since April 2022, he has been mainly streaming Riot Games’ FPS under the 100 Thieves banner.
Even though Hiko’s brand grew significantly during his time in the VALORANT scene these past few years and his audience is way bigger than it was in his CS days, he’s still thinking about switching back to Valve’s FPS.
The 33-year-old explained how the age gap between the CS and VALORANT community plays out for him.
“The [CS] community, in general, is just better,” Hiko said during his latest livestream. “The VALORANT community is a little cringe to me, and probably because I’m just older. I think the average age in most of the CS people is older than the VALORANT people, but ultimately we’ll see. I don’t know what is about to happen.”
The exact release date of CS2 remains unclear. Valve is being quiet as usual and nobody knows what the developer has cooking for the definitive update for CS:GO. This means Hiko will have a bit more time to decide what direction he’ll take with his streaming career.
