Players leave evacuated fortress (6)
I believe the answer is:
castle
'fortress' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'players leave evacuated' is the wordplay.
'players' becomes 'cast' (I've seen this before).
'evacuated' says to hollow out the word (remove centre letters).
'leave' with its centre taken out is 'le'.
'cast'+'le'='CASTLE'
(Other definitions for castle that I've seen before include "Another word for chess rook" , "Large building; rook" , "a piece in the corner" , "Fortified stronghold" , "Big building" .)