Counter Strike: Global Offensive has breached containment. Originally, Counter Strike 2 was meant as a free-to-play replacement for the famed tactical shooter, outright replacing it on Steam.
Now, CS:GO is back… sort of. You won’t find it by just searching for its Steam store page like a normal person. No, you need to scour the internet for a direct link to its unlisted store page. (wherever could it be?)
Back in the day, CS:GO was absolutely dominant on charts of Steam’s most-played games. And with this mere ounce of freedom, the game has returned to its usual shenanigans.
Have a look at SteamDB and see for yourself. As of writing, CS:GO has more concurrent players than: Team Fortress 2, VRChat, and Warframe, only being narrowly beaten by Terraria. Any game in the top 100 is doing pretty well for itself, and Counter Strike: Global Offensive sits at number 24.
As has been pointed out by IGN, Counter Strike: Global Offensive has not actually been fully revived. You can get it, you can play against bots, and players can connect with each other, but there’s no dedicated servers. No matchmaking. The only way you’re going to play PvP CS:GO right now is if you know what you’re doing.
Evidently, many people know what they’re doing. Despite the continued existence of Counter Strike 2, and despite the many, many factors limiting the ways players can access and play CS:GO, it’s still somehow doing extremely well.
People Show Their Support For Counter Strike: Global Offensive
One more Fun Fact about CS:GO resurfacing is that the reviews on its Store page (over 17,000 of them) are only from after the game was let back into the wild. While the old reviews aren’t available on the store page anymore, there’s plenty of gems in the new ones.
Topping that list is one user who “just woke up from a 3-year coma,” and started riffing on Counter Strike 2.
“Surely Valve hasn’t deleted half the content and replaced it with a buggy sequel, right?”
Another user writes: “I never cherished you as much as I do now after I’ve lost you.”
Counter Strike: Global Offensive has been gone from Steam ever since Counter Strike 2 replaced it. Evidently, this town is more than big enough for the two of them.
“Just played against bots and it’s still so fun to play even if isn’t against real people. Thanks valve for making it into another game <3”
With a rush of support this strong, it’s possible that Valve could bring those old servers back online. They’re obviously playing favorites with the new title taking all the glory – but if there’s demand, there’s usually supply.
CS:GO isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, and though it’s in hiding, it’s still more than capable of dominating steam charts with one hand tied behind its back. Smells like there’s money in it for Valve if they let it grow beyond the shadow of Counter Strike 2.
