What was going on with dev1ce during his year-long CS:GO break?

We often see legendary players decide to take some time away from the competitive esports scene for different reasons. Some claim they want to rest, while others want to spend time with their families or devote themselves to other activities.

However, one of the legends of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Nicolai “dev1ce” Reedtz, spent a full year away from the CS:GO scene while he was with NiP, and there was no confirmed information about what had happened. But, in a recent interview, dev1ce mentioned all the details.

Dev1ce explains the reasons why he took a year off from the scene

Now that he is fully active with Astralis, dev1ce has taken the trouble explaining his short retirement from CS:GO for a year. Recall that dev1ce’s last participation before rejoining Astralis had been in December 2021, when he contested the IEM Winter 2021 with NiP. It took exactly one year for dev1ce to return to the servers with Astralis.

In an interview of dev1ce with the HLTV Confirmed podcast, the player detailed that in December 2021 he was suffering from mental health issues due to personal problems and the pressure of competing. For this reason, the media stayed away from this information, respecting the player’s privacy.

In the podcast, dev1ce said:

“Things happened in my personal life that I don’t want to talk too much about, but they really made it so that I was a lot more isolated than I’ve ever been. Like you also said, I had many personal problems, like not being able to sleep for many months and starting to have panic attacks in the middle of the night, you can talk about it, but if you experience it, you know how fucked up it is. It’s tough to understand if you haven’t tried it. But I kept going because Major Stockholm 2021 was a big deal for us as a team and for NiP as an organization, and we were doing pretty well heading into that tournament.”

Dev1ce had to leave early

After being eliminated in the Quarterfinals of the PGL Major Stockholm by G2 Esports, NiP, and dev1ce had to continue preparing for the next tournament. Days later, they had to play the BLAST Premier Fall Final and, at the beginning of December, the IEM Winter. Dev1ce, displaying his spectacular skills and demonstrating exceptional performance, took NiP to the semifinals of the IEM Winter 2021. In the quarterfinal match against GODSENT, dev1ce had an ADR of 90.7 and a Rating of 1.20, according to HLTV.

However, the player could not return for the semifinals with NiP against G2 Esports, and the Swedish organization had to play Love “phzy” Smidebrant. While the team managed to beat G2 Esports and advance to the grand final, it was evident that the piece called dev1ce was always missing from the server.

When asked on the podcast why he decided not to play in the semifinals, the player replied that he had a lot of stress built up and was advised by some doctors and psychologists that he should take a long break from esports. Dev1ce said:

“My body shut down. I used to throw up every other day because of stress, and I did that for a long time, but the pressure was different. Then, finally, I didn’t think I could take it anymore. Everything around CS was so chaotic that I had to switch off and withdraw.”

Future of dev1ce

As mentioned, the player is currently part of Astralis’ starting lineup in the ESL Pro League S17, which will be his next challenge. The team will debut next March 15 against Team Spirit in a group they share with Team Liquid, Rare Atom, ATK, ENCE, forZe, and NaVi.

We hope to continue to see that dev1ce that captivated us during the successful passage through Astralis that won it all between 2017 and 2020. In addition, we also hope that he returns to his top form and can continue to rub shoulders with the best in the world, currently Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyljev and Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut.

Header: BLAST