The infamous Nikhil ‘forsaken’ Kumawat is once again free to compete at Valve-sponsored events as of 19th September 2024 under the new New RMR Eligibility Guidelines published by the developers back in 2021.
It is hard to be in the Counter-Strike community and not know about the OpTic India debacle that unfolded back in eXTREMESLAND 2018 Finals. For players who are relatively new to the community, popular esports organization OpTic Gaming came to India to form an Indian roster after realizing the potential in the Indian CSGO scene. After months of trial and screening, a roster was formed with Forsaken as one of the stars.
The roster took the Indian CSGO scene by storm as they dominated every regional tournament that came their way. Heading into the eXTREMESLAND 2018 finals, several of Forsaken’s plays were deemed fishy by notable community members but the lack of solid proof kept anything from happening to him. Upon losing to FrostFire in their opening match of the tournament, OpTic India took on MVP PK. During the match against the Korean side, Forsaken was caught using cheats on LAN which caused OpTic to disband the roster and scrap the project in its entirety.
As it seemed, Forsaken would never return to professional Counter-Strike given the resentments he caused in the Indian CS community and to make things worse, Valve imposed a ban that forced organizations to distance themselves from him, not that they would have considered him anyway. In a shocking turn of events, Valve released an updated RMR Eligibility Guidelines in 2021, three years after the debacle, that would allow him to compete again and today is the day his ban gets lifted.
Forsaken was nowhere to be found after 2018 as he completely disappeared from the scene. While several rumors floated around, there remains little to no information about his latest whereabouts. His actions have pushed back the progress of the Indian esports scene but with collective efforts from the rest, it is thriving like never before.
It is unlikely that his actions would be forgiven despite Valve giving him a clean chit as of now, and if he does return to the scene, getting into a top esports org would be next to impossible for him.
