Sentinels’ zombs reveals pro Valorant retirement: “Not worth it for me anymore”

Sentinels’ inactive Valorant player Jared ‘zombs’ Gitlin has indicated that he has no plans to compete anymore, stating that he has “better” opportunities lined up.

zombs has been on Sentinels’ bench since April 2022, when the North American giants decided to shake things up after a rough start to the year and signed Eric ‘Kanpeki’ Xu from Akrew to the team.

With all 10 VCT Americas partner teams having already announced their rosters for 2023 (including Sentinels, who signed Gustavo ‘Sacy’ Rossi, Bryan ‘pANcada’ Luna, and Rory ‘dephh’ Jackson, while bringing Hunter ‘SicK’ Mims back as their sixth player), a move to a Challengers team has been suggested as a possible destination for zombs.

However, in a November 24 livestream, the 24-year-old revealed that, while he was indeed considering putting a team together, he has decided to stop playing competitively as he doesn’t see himself leaving Sentinels.

“I was scrimming for like a week,” he said. “The team I was making had some potential and we had some potential organizations interested. But then I went to Los Angeles, I talked to the SEN owner, and now I never want to leave SEN. I am staying on SEN forever.

“I have been on SEN since the beginning, since they had like zero followers. I am not going to compete again. It’s not worth it for me anymore. I have opportunities that are better for the future.”

A strong connection with Sentinels

zombs joined Sentinels in 2019 as an Apex Legends player after retiring from Overwatch. He racked up almost $60,000 in prize money in the battle royale title over the next 12 months before switching to Valorant following the game’s release.

He enjoyed more success as part of Sentinels’ Valorant team, which dominated the North American scene in 2020 and also won the game’s first international event, VCT 2021 Stage 2 Masters Reykjavík.

But as time went on, Sentinels lost their place at the top of the game. In 2022, they could not qualify for any international events, prompting an overhaul of the team at the end of the season.

Like many other professional players, zombs admitted that he has grown disillusioned with life in esports.

“Playing pro video games isn’t what everyone thinks it is,” he said. “You’ve got to realize how impossible it is to have a full team of five people who are on the same page together. It’s like a one-in-a-million. Every team has too many problems all the time. Most of the time, you don’t even get paid to the point where it’s worth spending years of your life grinding.

“Esports is like the Wild West. Everyone is f***ing everyone over.“

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