- 4Kings founder HenryG has dropped a massive hint the team might be coming back
- The organization was active between 1997 and 2013 and has helped establish esports as a discipline today
- HenryG made a return to esports early in 2021 but under another team’s banner
One of the most influential esports organizations of all times, 4Kings, may be coming back under the aegis of its original founder, Henry “HenryG” Greer.
Esports Royalties Never Die
The Kings are back – well, at least there is a very good chance that they MIGHT be coming back. A hint by Henry “HenryG” Greer suggests that one of the forefathers of esports organizations, 4Kings, may be making a return.
The British esports powerhouse was one of the first to seriously promote competitive video gaming. Founded in 1997, the organization competed in various events and attracted some of the trailblazers of esports such as Counter-Strike and Warcraft III.
In a brief Tweet statement, Greer “asked for a friend” to find out who owned the current rights for the 4Kings naming rights, and later added: “It would be a travesty if 4Kings never made it back.”
He has a point. After helping establish the esports scene altogether, and pretty much set most of the pieces on it, 4Kings deserves to be represented on a competitive level. For those who are new to esports, 4Kings was one of the leading organizations in the early days of esports.
A Legacy That Lives On
The organization was founded in the late 90s and remained active through the 2000s until it was disbanded completely in 2013, when the Counter-Strike roster was released. The organization competed in all staples of the esports experience, including StarCraft, Warcraft and Counter-Strike.
Over its life span, 4Kings attracted a number of quality players who pretty much helped shape the future of competitive video gaming. They had talented professional players such as Manuel “Grubby” Schenkhuizen, a renowned Warcraft 3 professional who is now an active Twitch streamer.
Yoan “ToD” Merlo and Sebastian “FuRy” Pesic, two of Grubby’s teammates, competed until very late and ToD is actually still active on the Back2Warcraft channel, in a mass effort to resuscitate the competitive community.
Yet, real-time strategies is not the only place where the team excelled with talented players such as Joona “natu” Leppänen and Mattias “Snajdan” Andersen playing under the 4Kings banner.
A Slow Start to Esports Return
This legacy must have weighed on Greer’s shoulders over the years as he must have surely witnessed the boundless momentum of competitive gaming in the post-4Kings era. He made a return back to esports in 2021 but ended on a faux pas with the dismissal of the Cloud9 “Colossus” project that simply didn’t make it.
Yet, this has not dispirited him. One of the founding fathers of esports, Greer is in a position to resuscitate a brand that we all know and love. Grubby, who is still active, and playing various games, could be interested in coming back to his old clan – to borrow a Warcraft vernacular – and so could be others.
Of course, fresh talent is never out of the question, too.
