Raptors won the ESL Prem LAN at Insomnia last year
UK esports organisation Raptors are winding down their esports operations, they announced in a post titled ‘The End of Raptors Esports’.
The org said an ‘inability to find stability in UKCS has been detrimental to the success of our seemingly uprising esports organisation’, in this post on the Raptors Esports Club website. “And as a result we formally announce that we will be stepping away from esports operations for the foreseeable future.
“Moving forward, we are still unsure on how or if to progress as a business and contribute to the UK esports ecosystem from a different angle, but we will keep you updated with our new direction and any future plans we may develop. Until then, thank you for being a part of the Raptors family.”
Raptors Esports Club said their Counter-Strike 2 team had disbanded, a decision made by the roster, and that the news was ‘prematurely’ tweeted out by some in the roster.
“Following this drama, we would like to formally announce that our CS2 team has disbanded and that they will no longer be representing Raptors EC,” Raptors said. “This comes at an unfortunate time, just one month before Epic.LAN 42, but we hope that it is a decision made for the right reasons within the team.
“As an organisation, we have struggled to settle within UKCS following our successful run in late 2023, and this has resulted in lacklustre consequences both on and off the server. This is not our first drama in recent times, with our previous team delivering poor results at the last Epic.LAN 41 and subsequently also disbanding.”
Raptors said they previously operated in Counter-Strike 2, TrackMania and Rainbow 6 Siege.
Last September, Raptors won the €15,000 Counter-Strike ESL Premiership LAN finals at Insomnia 71 in Birmingham, beating Endpoint 2-1 in the final.
Following this, in unrelated news, the ESL Premiership for the UK and Ireland was shut down, and Insomnia Gaming Festival’s organisers Player1 Events entered liquidation, meaning Raptors were the last team to win an ESL Prem on stage, and one of the last teams to compete at Insomnia.
According to Liquipedia, Raptors’ most recent roster consisted of Danish player BehinDx, Brits Prime, Karrar and wfn, Irish player AdamJC and UK coach deuce.
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.
