FalleN says retirement will mean family time and a new life beyond CS2

Gabriel “FalleN” Toledo said retirement is bringing him closer to a life that is not built entirely around Counter-Strike, with the Brazilian veteran telling HLTV in Beijing that he wants more time with his family before deciding how he will keep working in the game.

He was in China for what he described as his last ESL event, and the discussion around his future quickly widened beyond team changes or calling duties. After more than a decade of living away from home to compete internationally, FalleN said he is looking forward to ordinary routines that his schedule has rarely allowed, including time at home and the chance to do everyday things.

The trip carried added weight because his first international tournament was World Cyber Games 2009 in Chengdu. Seventeen years later, he is back in China as his playing career draws to a close, which gave the visit a sense of coming full circle. He also said winning in Chengdu again last year was “incredible.”

Family time is now at the top of his list

FalleN was clear about what he expects to miss most and what he is most eager to recover. He said his life has been so focused on competition that he does not know what the other version of himself looks like yet. “The only life I know so far is the one where I see myself as a gamer,” he said.

He said he has been trying to play at a decent level since he was 13, which means more than two decades of putting Counter-Strike first. That has included constant travel, living abroad, and long stretches away from the people closest to him. He said he misses time with his wife, dog, brothers and mother, and that being able to spend more of it with them is a must for him.

His wish list after full-time competition is not centered on tournaments, stage work or a media job. He wants to go to the shopping mall, watch a movie on a night when he did not plan to, and have dinner out with his wife. He also said he wants to fish, after only going a few times so far, and described it as “very pleasurable” because it gives him time in nature with people he likes.

FalleN added that he has recently started playing tennis a few times and has begun learning piano. Mandarin is on the list too, although he said that effort is still very early. Once his schedule opens up, he expects to look for a teacher and keep learning. His broader point was simple: he wants time to do normal things that competitive life has made difficult to do regularly.

That change would be unfamiliar. He said he has spent so long in Counter-Strike that he now needs to deal with the shock of suddenly having more time to do different things. At the same time, he made it clear that family comes first, and that he wants to build a routine around people he has not been able to see enough of during his career.

FURIA’s next step is still undecided

Before retirement becomes real, FalleN still has decisions to make about how he wants to keep contributing to Counter-Strike. Asked about FURIA’s recent experiments with giving YEKINDAR more calling responsibilities, he said the arrangement has reinforced some of his own strengths rather than changed the way he sees himself as an in-game leader.

He said leading alongside players with strong opinions has helped him. According to FalleN, he has been able to lead different teams, share responsibility inside the server, and adjust to other people’s inputs. He described YEKINDAR as a strong opinion player who knows what he likes to do and how he thinks the game should be played, and said the two work well together because of that.

The next step for FURIA is still open. FalleN said it is now mainly up to sidde and Nicholas guerri, who was the team’s last coach, to make moves and see who will be available for the next season. He said the end of the season is approaching, but the team has not chosen a path yet.

“I don’t really know exactly which path we’re going yet because it’s not decided, to be honest,” he said. FalleN said the staff are studying possible options and players who could join the team, but that there are still many variables to check. He described the situation as speculation for now and said the team will need to wait a bit longer.

That leaves open whether YEKINDAR could take over the role full-time, but FalleN did not commit to that direction. He said the process is still about checking possibilities before anything is decided. The uncertainty fits the stage FURIA are in as the season winds down and the roster picture remains unsettled.

What Counter-Strike has meant to him since he was 12

FalleN’s answers kept circling back to the same idea: Counter-Strike has shaped the way he sees life. He said he started playing at 12 after his brothers took him to a cyber café, and he fell in love with competing and trying to improve at something.

He said the game has stayed central ever since. “Counter-Strike was something that appeared in my life very early on,” he said. He added that he has learned about himself through the game and that his outlook on life is very Counter-Strike centered.

That view began in Brazilian cyber cafés and has followed him through a career that has taken him around the world. He said he still loves the game, believes it can change lives, and thinks it helps people connect with each other and with society through competition and shared experience. He also said he does not have a single bad memory in his 22 years around the community.

When he looked back at Chengdu in 2009, he focused on the first Chinese fan who asked for a photo. Coming from a small city in Brazil and seeing someone in China know who he was left a strong impression, especially because he said his memory usually is not great. He remembered the fan’s face and called the moment remarkable.

FalleN also said the game has changed in ways he never expected. The biggest difference for him is the tools players now have to study Counter-Strike. In the past, he said, players had to work through demos and videos by themselves, which took much longer. He said that level of analysis was hard to imagine back then.

Even with those changes, he said he saw early on that Counter-Strike could become huge. He recalled playing in Brazilian cyber cafés and thinking the game had all the pieces of a real sport: teamwork, competition and players working together. He even thought it could reach the Olympic Games. He said he was right to believe it would grow.

As retirement approaches, FalleN said he still does not know exactly what the next version of himself will look like. What he does know is that he wants more time for the people and activities his career has kept at a distance, and that he still wants some kind of place in Counter-Strike. “Keep going. Keep going. Everything’s going to be all right,” he said, reflecting on what he would tell his younger self.

He also said nothing about his relationship with the game has changed since he was a kid in Brazil. “I don’t really know the other version of myself,” he said, describing a future in which he finally has time to live outside competition while still finding ways to stay involved in the scene.