Published on 12.01 at 09:25.

Oleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev, a member of BCGame's CS2 roster, commented on the team following a recent series of roster changes. His message was published on Telegram and highlighted the squad's intensive practice routine: the players are training about ten hours every day as they prepare for upcoming events.

TOHO Animation has announced details about the second season of the anime series Sousou no Frieren (also known in English as Frieren: Beyond Journey's End). Among the confirmed information is the season's opening theme song, titled "Lulu," which will be performed by the band Mrs. Green Apple.

TOHO Animation has announced that the third season of the anime series Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation (Japanese: Mushoku Tensei: Isekai Ittara Honki Dasu) is scheduled to premiere in July 2026. The studio accompanied the announcement with a new promotional poster to mark the reveal.

A ceremony in Jordan recognized esports athletes who achieved notable results while representing their national teams during 2025. The event drew attention from prominent regional players, including Amer "Miracle-" al‑Barkawi and Ammar "ATF" Assaf, who were present to accept honors and support their peers.

Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut, the AWPer for Team Vitality in CS2, said that being named HLTV.org’s best player of 2025 is pleasant, but that he never set out to chase that specific accolade. He made the remarks in an interview with the Telegram channel known as "Trusy Raiza."

Ukrainian esports player Roman Fominok, better known as Resolut1on, has announced a major overhaul of his AI coach project ResoAI. After parting ways with his development team, he personally rewrote the bot's code and relaunched it as an updated MVP 2.0. The move follows his decision to take full responsibility for the product’s core qualities rather than outsource the work.

The Top 20 players ranking for 2025 has been finalized following the conclusion of this year’s HLTV Awards. Mathieu "ZywOo" Herbaut secured the top position, edging out Danil "donk" Kryshkovets and Robin "ropz" Kool to complete the list of the 20 best players of the year.

xAI, the artificial intelligence company founded by Elon Musk that is developing the Grok model, reported a net loss of $1.46 billion in the third quarter of 2025, according to Bloomberg. The figure marks the largest quarterly loss in the company’s history to date.

The fifth edition of the HLTV Awards, held in Belgrade, handed out seventeen prizes across three voting categories. Community Awards were decided by fans, Panel Awards were chosen by a jury of professionals, talent and HLTV staff, and HLTV also presented five in-house awards including the headline Player of the Year.

The Eastern European Dota 2 team Cheeki_Breeki has ceased operations, the squad's former support player Egor Lipartia, known as Xakoda, reported in a message on Telegram. The announcement follows the team's recent elimination from the DreamLeague Season 28 qualifying stage.

Filipe "Astini", the former coach of PARIVISION's Dota 2 roster, has spoken about why he chose to leave the organization. According to Astini, the decision came after he felt he had lost influence over draft decisions, which prevented him from performing his role effectively. He ultimately decided to part ways with the team for that reason.

James BanKs, a well-known host of Counter-Strike 2 tournaments, publicly said he agrees with Team Vitality captain Dan 'apEX' about the current overheating of the transfer market. BanKs shared his view on the social platform X, echoing concerns raised by the player about inflated valuations and risky financial expectations surrounding transfers.

On January 11 at 15:16, ApEX commented publicly on the transfer situation ahead of 2026, noting widespread intent among organizations to reshuffle their rosters.

On January 11 at 15:16, the player known as ApEX commented on teams' plans regarding roster changes ahead of the 2026 season.

Team Spirit coach Timur Ahilles Kulmukhametov has suggested that the club may have deliberately moved Denis 'Larl' Sigitov to the bench in order to try a starting lineup with Marat 'Mirele' Gazetdinov. On his Telegram channel the coach also conceded that Larl might indeed be dealing with personal matters that required him to take a break from competition.

Roman 'RAMZES666' Kushnaryov, a well-known Dota 2 streamer, suggested that a strong showing by Team Spirit at the start of 2026 could convince the club to keep Marat 'Mirele' Gasetdinov as a permanent midlane player. Kushnaryov voiced the opinion during a livestream; the remark was reported by the esports outlet that covered the stream.

Dan 'apEX' Madesclaire, captain of Team Vitality's CS2 roster, spoke emotionally about the period when Lotan 'Spinx' Giladi had already declared his intention to leave the team. In comments to HLTV, apEX said that when he learned about Spinx's plans the sense of trust inside the squad collapsed and the following months were extremely difficult for everyone involved.

Sergey “hally” Shavaev, coach of Team Spirit’s CS2 roster, explained how decision-making works inside the club. According to Shavaev, he plays the decisive role in in‑game moments but emphasizes a collaborative approach: he listens to all sides, allows players to argue and only intervenes when they cannot reach a consensus.

On 11 January at 13:10, professional player M0NESY publicly revealed the composition of the Russian national team that will compete at the upcoming Counter-Strike 2 World Championship.

A bug has been discovered in Dota 2 that allows Anti‑Mage equipped with the Magebane's Mirror aspect to kill Spectre with a single Counterspell activation if Anti‑Mage happens to be positioned in the flight path of Spectral Dagger. The issue was noticed by a player during a match, reproduced by users on Reddit, and subsequently reported to Valve for investigation.

Danil "donk" Kryshkovets, the rifler for Team Spirit, greeted his Best Highlight 2025 award at the HLTV ceremony with a joking, blunt remark when accepting the statuette. The player did not mince words and insisted he had no trouble with the opposing team in the clip that earned him the prize.

CS2 analyst Alex "Mauisnake" Ellenburg voiced strong disagreement with the choice of Mathieu "ZywOo" Erbo as the best player of 2025. In a post on X, Mauisnake highlighted the statistical superiority of Danil "donk" Kryshkovets, arguing that donk led in nearly every relevant individual metric yet was placed second in the year-end ranking.

Ilya Osipov, better known by his in-game name m0NESY, the AWPer for Team Falcons, commented on Valve's decision to change the competitive map pool in CS2. He believes Train should not have been taken out and that one of the older maps — Inferno, Mirage or Dust2 — would have been a more appropriate choice to remove.

Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut has been a fixture in end-of-year player rankings since his teenage breakthrough. After finishing high school and earning his parents’ blessing to turn professional, he exploded onto the scene in 2019, taking Player of the Year as a rookie while claiming five MVPs and three tournament wins. Since that breakthrough he has been inside the global top three every season, and in 2025 he became the first player ever to be named Player of the Year four times, surpassing the previous mark held jointly with Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev.

Mathieu "ZywOo" Herbaut, the AWPer for Team Vitality, was recognized as the best player of 2025 by the esports portal HLTV.org. The announcement was made during the HLTV Awards 2025 ceremony held on January 10, 2025.

On January 10 at 23:26, Aurora Gaming eliminated 1win Team from the closed qualifier for DreamLeague Season 28. The defeat ends 1win Team’s participation in this phase of the competition and advances Aurora Gaming’s prospects within the qualifier bracket.

BIG EQUIPA have been named the best women’s Counter-Strike team of 2025 at the HLTV Awards, and their in-game leader Mayline-Joy "ASTRA" Champliaud collected the award for Women’s Player of the Year.

Vitality were named Team of the Year at the HLTV Awards ceremony held in Belgrade, finishing ahead of Spirit and MOUZ in the year-end honors.

Published January 11 at 00:34.

On January 10 at 23:26, Aurora Gaming eliminated 1win Team from the closed qualifier for DreamLeague Season 28. The result ends 1win Team’s run in that stage of the competition and marks a notable advancement for Aurora Gaming within the tournament’s qualification process.

HLTV has picked its favorite highlight of 2025: an ace by player donk against Team Vitality. The moment was singled out as the standout play of the year, earning recognition from one of the scene’s most-followed outlets.

Danil "molodoy" Golubenko, the Kazakh AWPer for FURIA, was awarded Rookie of the Year at the HLTV Awards ceremony held in Belgrade on Saturday. The 21‑year‑old claimed the honour following a breakthrough season that established him among the game’s most exciting young talents.

Published January 10 at 22:47. French star ZywOo was awarded the Best AWPer (sniper) of the year at the HLTV Awards 2025.

January 10, 22:47 — ZywOo received the award for AWPer (sniper) of the year at the HLTV Awards 2025.

Leonid “chopper” Vishnyakov, the former captain of Team Spirit’s CS2 roster, expressed confidence that Boris “magixx” Vorobyov will manage the new responsibilities he has taken on. Vishnyakov emphasized that the key for Magixx will be to approach matches without letting emotions interfere and to focus on clear, calm decision-making.

A report published on 10 January at 20:34 states that Aurora Gaming has eliminated AVULUS from the closed qualifiers for DreamLeague Season 28. The result ends AVULUS’s run in this stage of the competition while allowing Aurora Gaming to continue its campaign toward a spot in the event.

Alphabet has moved ahead of Apple in market capitalization for the first time since 2019, according to figures published by CompaniesMarketCap. The shift occurred in the final days of the first week of January, driven by divergent stock moves for the two companies.

Nikita Martynenko, better known by his in-game name HeavyGod and a member of G2 Esports' CS2 roster, commented on his reaction to HLTV.org's ranking of the top 20 players for 2025. He said he did not count on getting into the list and emphasized that individual placements are secondary to collective achievements.

Former professional Counter-Strike player Daniil 'Zeus' Teslenko publicly criticized Valve's decision to bring the map Anubis back into the competitive map pool. In a post on his Telegram channel he said he was surprised and dismayed by the move and questioned the logic behind the rotation.