Global Esports won VCT Pacific in September, and India’s only partner team has now left esports to become an AI studio
Rushindra Sinha has released the whole Valorant roster and staff, and says the new partnership terms for 2027 made keeping the team together impossible to justify.
Oct 19, 2026
Global Esports are leaving esports. Founder and CEO Rushindra Sinha has announced that the organisation is shutting down its competitive side, releasing its whole Valorant roster and staff, and turning itself into an AI-focused company called GE Studios.
“This marks the official last day of Global Esports as a competitive roster,” Sinha said, in a statement reported by VLR.gg.
It ends the run of the only Indian organisation in VCT Pacific, Riot’s partnered league for the region, and it ends it in their best year. Global Esports joined the league in 2023. This season they became the first Indian team to qualify for a Masters event, reaching Masters London, and in September they won VCT Pacific Stage 2, coming back from two maps down to beat Nongshim RedForce 3-2 in the grand final in Busan.
Why a title-winning team is walking away
Riot starts a new two-year partnership cycle in 2027, and the Pacific league is reported to be going from ten partner teams to eight. Sinha said Riot asked him last November about Global Esports’ future under the new structure, and he told them then that 2026 was more than likely going to be the organisation’s last year in esports.
Under the new terms, he said, keeping this roster would have meant running a whole organisation around one team, and that did not make sense to him. “We tried everything to keep this roster together; they deserved it more than anything or anyone else,” he said.
They are not the only Pacific side outside the partner programme for 2027. Nongshim RedForce, who won Masters Santiago in March and lost that Busan final to Global Esports, will not be partners either, although their CEO Evans Oh says they will still field a team next year. KIWOOM DRX, DetonatioN FocusMe and BOOM Esports are also out. Rex Regum Qeon and ZETA DIVISION have announced they are in. Riot has not yet published its full list, but none of the Pacific partners confirmed so far is Indian.
Everyone on the books is now a free agent
The released players are Go “UdoTan” Kyung-won, Patrick “PatMen” Mendoza, Xavier “xavi8k” Juan, Savva “Kr1stal” Fedorov and Kale “autumn” Dunne. Head coach Daniel “Platoon” Zhou, assistant coach Derren “Aimix” dela Cruz, analyst Sam “Fields” Greenfield and manager Vatsal Uniyal are free to sign elsewhere too, along with the rest of the staff. No moves had been reported for any of them by Monday.
Their last event was Champions in Shanghai. They lost their opening Group B match 2-1 to Team Vitality on 26 September, swept EDward Gaming 2-0 to stay alive, and went out 2-0 to LOUD in the group decider on 4 October. LOUD went on to win the whole thing, beating Vitality 3-1 in Sunday’s final.
So the Indian organisation that finally won a VCT title will not be around to defend it. That is the part that stings.