The time has come to say goodbye to Enemy Territory. Some small glitz was shown at the end of last year when special tournaments with prizes were hosted. Nevertheless this was only temporarily and the activity went down close to zero.
Not only the ESL was affected by this massive activity drop but also similar services. The so called "two weeks clans" turned out to be "some days clans", the number of active and stable teams decreased drastically. That is why this Section in the Electronic Sports League will be closed on 6th May 2013.

We had a great time with countless cups, leagues and other tournaments within the last 10 years. On its zenith Enemy Territory matches were even shown live on German TV! Thousands of Euros as well as numerous hardware prizes have been distributed in tournaments like the International Premiership Series, ESL Amateur Series, ESL Major Series and other special events. Offline finals at LAN events also made some of these tournaments very special.

Ongoing arguments like 5on5 vs. 6on6 or Punkbuster vs. other anti-cheat tools etc. split the community more than once. The attempt to introduce ESL's very own anti-cheat tool (ESL Wire Anti Cheat) which could have been used in official and training matches or even for IRC wars was not wanted by the community. The introduction of ESL Gathers or the fast and easy match making system called VERSUS were refused by the community too. Still the ESL Admin Team was determined to support this great game and went on with more events, cups and the Country Championship. At least some people gave us some positive feedback which was really appreciated but the majority of the community linked the ESL with causeless prejudices. When giving it a try these guys were disabused. But the overall activity went down, default wins and less participants characterized the recent tournaments. Enemy Territory is indeed an old game and had to struggle with several problems not only after the official support was stopped. No newcomers, guys of former times grew up and are fighting on another battlefield now. The time has come to say goodbye!

We, the ESL Admin Team have put a lot of effort, time and money in this section but especially in the last months the community did not really appreciated that. When following the community website crossfire it seems obvious that nobody misses the ESL Enemy Territory section or even playing the game. Moreover we got no feedback by the rest of the shrinking community or the clear wish that we should go on. Nevertheless we continued but the battery is empty and dead as Enemy Territory is.

Finally we want to thank all teams and players who supported the ESL and participated over years. Also a big thanks to our partners and sponsors which were a loyal companion.