ZywOo and apEX extend with Vitality through 2028: ten years at the same club
Vitality have secured their two pillars. The French organization announced on August 19, at the start of the Esports World Cup playoffs and in front of a crowd of fans gathered at their own booth at the event, the contract extensions of Mathieu "ZywOo" Herbaut and Dan "apEX" Madesclaire through the end of 2028.
Both players signed live, in a staged moment the organization framed — grandiosely, but not without justification — as a legacy becoming legendary.
When legacy becomes legendary
— Team Vitality CS (@TeamVitalityCS) August 19, 2026
ZywOo 🤝 apEX 2028 📝 pic.twitter.com/TEcvfwIRCn
A statistic that barely exists in esports
The genuinely remarkable part of this extension is what it means in terms of time. ZywOo and apEX joined Vitality in 2018, when the organization was taking its first steps in Counter-Strike. If they see out the contract, by 2028 they'll have completed ten years under the same tag — practically unprecedented in a scene where rosters are rebuilt every six months.
To put it in this summer's terms: over the past two months we've watched Aurora dismantle their entire core, MOUZ, HEROIC, and NAVI rebuild, and players like jL and Perfecto spend weeks as free agents. Ten years in one place, in that context, is a different sport.
At the contract's end, ZywOo will be 28 and apEX will be nearly 36.
What each of them brings
These aren't just any two players.
ZywOo is, for much of the scene, the best player of his generation: three Majors (Paris 2023, Austin 2025, and Budapest 2025) with the MVP award at all three, four-time HLTV Player of the Year (2019, 2020, 2023, and 2025), 32 MVPs, and the 2025 AWPer of the Year award. His previous contract was due to expire at the end of this year.
apEX, for his part, has led the team to those three Majors and 26 top-tier trophies as in-game leader, plus HLTV's IGL of the Year award in both 2023 and 2025. By his own account, he had been renegotiating his contract since early spring.
Together, alongside flameZ, mezii, and ropz, they produced an extraordinary 2025: two ESL Grand Slams and a 30-match winning streak.
What they said
ZywOo framed it as the natural decision: the club has been his home for eight years, they share the same ambition to keep winning trophies and stay at the top, and he's grateful for the support and proud of what they've achieved — with a clear message that they aren't done.
In a follow-up interview he expanded on it, explaining that re-signing alongside apEX felt like the normal thing given his love for the club, the mutual trust, and the team they have right now, and that he doesn't see it stopping any time soon: he considers it the right step for his future and for the end of his career.
apEX was more direct: he's staying two more years at the best club in the world, he always said he wanted to finish his career in a Vitality jersey, and he'll give everything to end up on top. With a very apEX flourish about wanting to keep hearing the crowd chant his name a while longer.
On their relationship after eight years together, ZywOo described it without embellishment: sometimes they argue, sometimes they laugh, sometimes apEX does crazy things, and everyone knows it. It's always been the same.
The calendar's irony
There's one detail no organization would have planned. Vitality announced the extension on Wednesday and, two days later, were eliminated in the quarter-finals of that very tournament, falling to Spirit.
And it doesn't arrive at just any moment. The French are carrying an uneven summer: three tournaments without a top-four finish, an early BLAST Bounty exit to Liquid that ended a streak of over 900 days without dropping outside the top eight, and that B8 message during the Paris group stage declaring the Vitality era officially over.
The extension is, precisely, the organization's answer to that noise: betting on continuity rather than revolution. With apEX and mezii absent from the coming tournaments on paternity leave — and jL standing in at Porto and Bucharest — the project's real test will come in the autumn, on the road to November's Singapore Major.
Source: Vitality, HLTV, Dust2, Sheep Esports.