CS:GO breaks player records as Counter-Strike 2 hype rises

CS:GO breaks player records as Counter-Strike 2 hype rises

200,000 smooth players in block records 2020.


The Counter-Strike 2 perspective (opens in new tab) has a lot of people playing CS:GO (opens in new tab), with a new all-time player record of 1,519,457 being set today. This is a number reported by SteamDB (opens in new tab) and Steamcharts (opens in new tab) and is much higher than previous CS:GO watermarks. CS:GO's previous high point was in April 2020, when pandemic lockdowns around the world saw many games - and Steam itself - register record numbers of players.


That's because Counter-Strike 2 was announced this week. It's a real game, it's free, and everything about it is carried over (opens in a new tab) from Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Everyone's fancy skins are going to Source Engine 2 land. Yep, even that person's $150,000 weapon skin (opens in a new tab). It sent the CS skins market straight to crazy town (opens in a new tab).


Today's record surpasses the previous count by over 200,000 players. The reason? Well, the popular theory goes that it's because Counter-Strike 2 beta access is only going to people who play a lot of Counter-Strike. (And no cheaters or idiots are getting in (opens in a new tab), which is hysterical.) That, or it's just a bunch of old or old gamers getting nostalgic about Counter-Strike and wanting to experience it at its peak before from CS2 arrives and steals the player count.


Counter-Strike: Global Offensive has been on the rise since launch, rarely dropping over the course of a single year outside of an extended nadir in 2018. Even that low point, however, was still yielding over 400,000 daily players. Late 2018 saw the release of the free version of CS:GO, and the year-over-year average has stabilized at something like a million players since then.


The reaction to Counter-Strike 2 was pretty much what you'd expect from an impressive, cool-looking update to a staple shooter for casual and esports players: almost universally positive (opens in a new tab). Counter-Strike's resident boss Rich Stanton said Valve may well have created his dream game, dumping a list of improvements (opens in new tab) he noticed on the site.


Oh, and for those worried that CS2 is going to steal all CS:GO players? Probably not. After all, people still play CS 1.6.