Esports. It has really taken off this past year, and a lot of that is thanks to lockdown. When traditional sports events were postponed, esports managed to find a way to keep going. Viewers flocked to check events out and many have stuck around. We even saw online sportsbooks begin to offer odds on events taking place all over the globe. It truly took off to new heights.
Wouldn’t it be great if you could be the next big esports star? Getting paid to play video games. Well, you could be. Just like traditional sports, it takes a lot of practice and dedication, but it is doable. But what would be the best game to get you started? Well, it depends on where your skill set lies. Here’s a few suggestions of the best esports to get into for beginners.
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, or CS:GO for short, is one of the most popular esports titles around. It is a multiplayer first-person shooter that sees two teams take on each other playing the parts of terrorists and counter-terrorists. Each team consists of five players, with the terrorists trying to plant and activate a bomb on the counter-terrorist side. The counter-terrorists have to wipe out the other team, or deactivate the bomb before it goes off if it has been planted successfully.
Some of the best things about the game for beginners is that it is now free-to-play, and compared to some titles, it is less resource intensive. Meaning this game can even be played on some lower spec PCs. Obviously, the better the PC the better the performance, but with CS:GO it’s not essential. This makes it ideal for people looking to dabble with competitive games because you don’t have to have one of the most expensive setups to play.
Minimum Specs:
- OS: Windows 7/Vista/XP
- Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 or AMD Phenom X3 8750 processor or better
- Memory: 2GB RAM
- Graphics: Video card must be 256MB or more and should be a DirectX 9-compatible with support for Pixel Shader 3.0
- DirectX: Version 9.0c
- Storage: 15GB available space
Rocket League
Rocket League like CS:GO is also free-to-play now, meaning you don’t have to pay to get the game or play online with other gamers. That is where the only similarity lies with CS:GO though as Rocket League is a completely different game entirely. You can play solo, in duos or as a trio and control a rocket powered car in a football style game where you smash a ball around an arena, with the idea to knock the ball into the back of your opponents goal. It’s a really simple concept, but can be hard to master, although it’s a lot of fun and has a great competitive scene.
Rocket League is a little more resource intensive though. You will need some better specs than for CS:GO, but it’s still playable on lower end gaming PCs if you knock down the visual quality settings to ‘low’. It won’t look as good, but it’ll still play well and should give you a better return on your frames per second.
Minimum Specs:
- OS: Windows 7 (64 bit) or newer
- Processor: 2.5GHz Dual core
- Memory: 4GB RAM
- Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 760, AMD Radeon R7 270X, or better
- DirectX: Version 11
- Storage: 20GB available space
League of Legends
If first-person shooters and sports-style games (combined with cars in this sense) aren’t your style, maybe something like League of Legends (LoL) is more for you? LoL is one of the biggest games in esports with tournaments that see prize pools hitting the millions. It’s also another very different style of game and a little more complex than the other two, but if you make it in this title, you could strike a big payday.
LoL is classed as a multiplayer online battle arena or MOBA, and was launched in 2009 by Riot Games. Inspired by a modified version of Warcraft III, it consists again of two teams, with each team consisting of 5 legends, whose aim is to navigate the map with the ultimate goal of destroying the enemy base. But it’s not so simple, with large maps that have lanes you have to navigate, and so tactics play heavily into this title. Out of the three, this is about on level in terms of minimum specs as Rocket League.
Minimum Specs:
- OS: Windows 7, 8 or Windows 10
- Processor: 3GHz Processor (supporting SSE2 instruction set or higher)
- Memory: 2GB RAM
- Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 760, AMD Radeon R7 270X, or better
- DirectX: Version 9.0c
- Storage: 12GB available space
Hopefully, this gives you a little glimpse into the different styles of games available, and the kind of systems you’ll need to get into esports. There are plenty more games available though, but it’s a good place to start at for beginners with these being some of the most popular games around. If you’ve dabbled into esports already, why not let us know how you got on in the comments and which game it was you played.