How long will you be playing video games for? (Valve)
A senior citizen with arthritis reveals the inspiring story of how he managed to reach the top of Counter-Strike 2 thanks to his gaming friends.
A 72-year-old Counter-Strike 2 fan reminds us that gaming isn’t just for teenagers, and tells his story, like the senior with 600,000 Twitch followers who loves Fortnite, how he does it.
Plagued with arthritis, Eddy ‘eastRab’ Montville still managed to reach the third round in the ESEA Open playoffs this season, after going 10-4 in the group stages with his team.
He now explains how he went from the lowest rank in Counter-Strike 2 all the way to Global Elite, and why the friends he’s made have been the most important experience.
It all began when his son got him Counter-Strike 2 for Christmas in 2016 and he started to play by himself in Silver 1, the lowest rank in the game’s competitive mode.
Here he met those who would later become his friends and teammates, and by late 2022 he had reached Global Elite, the highest rank in Counter-Strike 2.
One of his friends from the Silver 1 days asked if Montville wanted to join his team, Iron Wolves, for the upcoming ESEA Open season, which is agreed to.
He soon realised that the ESEA tournament was a lot more challenging than normal matchmaking, but still managed to help the team. His arthritis, however, forces him to make some adjustments.
‘I can’t manage to use the WSAD keys like everyone else. My movement keys are ASDF, with A and F strafe left and right, D forward and S backward.
‘The rest of my binds are also changed to keys I can actually reach comfortably, including Mouse 1 for shoot & Mouse 2 for duck. Necessity is the mother of invention,’ he tells Dust2.us.
Montville’s story has made its way to Reddit too, where fellow Counter-Strike 2 fans praise his accomplishments.
He’s not the team’s top fragger, far from it, but he says he is still useful to the team in other ways:
‘I’m good with utility, learning all the important smokes and mollys for the maps we played. And I also did mid-round entries into sites to get the information to allow my teammates to win the round.
‘A complete support player, although I describe my role as ‘quality bottom fragger’,’ he says.
One of eastRab’s teammates during this ESEA season (Twitter)
Though he’s not a star player in terms of kill output, Montville says his time playing Counter-Strike 2 has served a greater experience.
‘It’s not the competition, the league, the playoffs, or even just playing the game I love that makes this a memorable experience. It’s the friends I’ve made, several of whom I’ve already been friends with for years both in and out of the server.
‘When I’m in the server, I’m not an old man with chronic pain and chronic fatigue, I’m just one of the guys and when playing I’m alive!’
Montville isn’t sure if he’ll be back for the next ESEA season, but he’s certainly made an impression on the people around him.
‘It’s also icing on the cake that my 29-year-old son brags to his friends about my accomplishments in Counter Strike,’ he says.
Now get eastRab on the big stage (Valve)
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