Some well-known UK esports organisations are swapping their digital weapons for actual paintball guns in a unique tournament which is taking place right now (12pm, August 28th 2021).
UK gaming energy drink brand, Beyond NRG, has created a new league for esports teams to compete physically – The Beyond NRG UK Paintball Open, hosted by CPPS.
The driving force behind this is to bring together the biggest names in UK esports for a day out of their traditional gaming studios.
The selection of teams competing in the Paintball Open wouldn’t naturally meet in-game, due to competing in different titles and leagues. So this exclusive invite-only tournament series allows esports teams to compete 5v5 IRL.
“We at Beyond have huge plans for this for this series! Eventually, we will make a ‘world’ series, inviting teams like Faze, Fnatic, G2, Astralis etc to send a team over to compete in an esports-only IRL league!”
Billy Webb, Beyond NRG
You can catch all the action live on Twitch at 12pm today (Saturday 28th August 2021) by heading to https://www.twitch.tv/cppspaintball.
Beyond NRG CEO, Billy Webb said: “Paintball has always been a sport that I have loved to play since the age of seven, and once representing Team GB. Tournament paintball has a very similar tactic and format as games like CSGO. Paintball is all about zone control and making game-winning moves.
“We at Beyond have huge plans for this for this series! Eventually, we will make a ‘world’ series, inviting teams like Faze, Fnatic, G2, Astralis etc to send a team over to compete in an esports only IRL league!”
The CPPS is a UK tournament paintball venue, and partners of Beyond NRG. More information on tournament paintball can be found here: https://youtu.be/OUII_ND_NV0
The eight teams taking part are as follows:
- Beyond – Staff
- Cherry Twisted – Influencers
- Lemon Sherbeted – Influencers
- Rize – Partner
- Clique – Partner
- Excel – Partner
- Endpoint – Partner
- The Goose House – Partner
The news comes after Beyond NRG took their newest energy drink flavour – Space Rocks – and flew six of their new tubs into space, claiming the title of ‘first ever gaming energy drink sent into space’.
After the 8,768 seconds long journey that took them 33,190m above earth, they began a slow decent back down to solid ground, only to be scooped up and popped on the internet, ready for six lucky fans to come along and bag themselves a piece of history.
Two months ago, Beyond NRG became the UK’s most widely distributed gaming energy drink after striking a deal with wellness retailer Holland & Barrett.
Further reading: Beyond NRG review: Just another gaming energy drink or a breakthrough formula?
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
