Natus Vincere CS:GO star Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev has agreed to a three-year contract extension, the Ukrainian esports organization announced Tuesday.
NAVI’s announcement did not specify the terms of the seemingly lucrative agreement, but the move will keep the Ukrainian star with the organization until the end of 2025, as opposed to his existing contract that has just two months left.
We will never let him go pic.twitter.com/mBS7H60ubd
— NAVI (@natusvincere) October 18, 2022
“Thank you for your trust,” s1mple tweeted Tuesday, “time to archive even better memorable results. Thanks to all fans for support and don’t forget to support Ukraine in such a difficult time.”
S1mple, 25, joined NAVI on Aug. 4, 2016. In his six-year tenure with the org, NAVI has won several tournaments, including ESL One: New York 2016, CS:GO Asia Championships 2018, ESL One: Cologne 2018, StarSeries & i-League CS:GO Season 7, BLAST Premier: Global Final 2020 and Season 3 of the Intel Grand Slam.
Individually, s1mple has cemented himself as one of the game’s elite, earning 21 MVP awards and being named the best player in the world by HLTV in 2018 and 2021.
This past summer, s1mple told HLTV.org that he was considering taking a break from competing since he hadn’t had a permanent place of residence since Russia began its invasion of Ukraine.
S1mple missed the start of the BLAST Premier Fall Groups because of personal reasons, but later returned for his Play-In stage match 2-0 victory against Vitality to secure a spot in the Fall Finals.
After a 5th-8th finish in ESL Pro League Season 16, NAVI went 3-0 in the European RMR B tournament to secure its spot through to the Legends Stage at IEM Rio 2022, which is slated to get started on Nov. 5.
NAVI’s 2022 CS:GO roster remains:
