Counter-Strike: Global Offensive — known to most as CS:GO — is back on Steam in its own right… but only if you know where to look.
Counter-Strike 2 regularly tops Steam’s Most Played games list (for example, it hit a peak of 1.3 million players just in the last 24 hours alone). Its predecessor, however, was well-loved, too, yet it was effectively nuked when its home on Steam was replaced as Counter-Strike 2 dropped in 2023. That meant that if you’d wanted to play CS:GO before this update, you would’ve had to dig into the game’s legacy branch via Steam and access it from there.
A stinging caveat is that the servers have not been resurrected, nor is there any matchmaking, which means you can only play against the bots available to you via Counter-Strike 2’s beta branch. But the fact it’s been given its own store page could — maybe? — be a sign that those kinds of things may eventually come back to life. (I wouldn’t hold your breath, though. Just in case!)
That hasn’t stopped thousands of players from jumping into the free-to-play shooter, though. At the time of this article’s publication, it had 44,058 concurrent players on Steam — pretty impressive stuff for a 14-year-old game.
Interestingly, though, CS:GO won’t pop up in a search for you — as the store page cautions, “at the request of the publisher, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is unlisted on the Steam store and will not appear in search.” This means you’ll need the direct link to access and download it.
Meanwhile, the attorney general of New York, Letitia James, is suing Valve, alleging the platform illegally promotes gambling to children. The AG’s office announced last week that an investigation “found that Valve’s video games, including Counter-Strike 2, Team Fortress 2, and Dota 2, enable gambling by enticing users to pay for the chance to win a rare virtual item of significant monetary value.”
Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world’s biggest gaming sites and publications. She’s also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.
