CS: GO Crosses 1.5 Million Concurrent Steam Players, Beats Its Own Record

The hype is real. Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, despite releasing about 11 years ago, continues to be a global phenomenon. Valve’s genre-defining first-person shooter has managed to cross more than 1.5 million concurrent players on Steam, as per the unofficial SteamDB tracker. It’s hard to fathom how a game that was released such a while back is still a roaring celebrity in the day and age we live in today. 

Surprisingly, the game has been at it for a while now, putting out record after record in short intervals. Earlier this year, the game clocked over 1.3 million players, thereby shattering its all-time concurrent player peak at the time. Fast-forward to the start of March, it furthered this record and had about 1.4 million players playing the title at once. Valve even took to Twitter to thank its followers and fans. 

Now, however, it appears that CS: GO has struck gold yet again, gathering a whopping 1.5 million peak player count on Steam. At the time of writing, about 1.09 million users are duking it out, either defusing bombs, knifing each other to death, or nailing those no-scope headshots. We’ll take the liberty to remind you here that the game is almost 11 years old now, tracing its initial release date back to August 21, 2012. 

In case you missed it, which is quite unlikely, given how the news spread like wildfire over the course of the past week, Valve finally announced CS: GO 2, following days and days of chasing after rumors, leaks, and everything of the like. Evidently, contrary to what many people were led to believe, Counter-Strike 2 is a free update for the base Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, reinvigorated with a new, more powerful game engine called Source 2.  

Today we're excited to announce Counter-Strike 2. Counter-Strike 2 is an overhaul to every system, every piece of content, and every part of the C-S experience. First, let's talk about smoke grenades: pic.twitter.com/iTtguRHJ0S

— CS2 (@CounterStrike) March 22, 2023

It all started when an Nvidia driver update’s log files involved a mention of “csgo2” executable programs. This spot buzzed throughout the industry, creating a skyrise rumor that a new iteration of the ever-popular Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is coming out soon. One thing led to another, and further leaks made it super believable that a new Counter-Strike is under development for sure.

However, as things escalated, so did the actual veracity of the matter. Industry insider Tyler McVicker created a video explaining that a CS: GO Source 2 port is coming, not a full-on sequel, explaining how the developers have taken measures to improve the existing game by making it transition to a new engine. This, of course, is miles apart from a game that’s built afresh from scratch.  

On that note, the developer hold the buffed-up CS: GO in high regard, saying, “Counter-Strike 2 is the largest technical leap forward in Counter-Strike’s history, ensuring new features and updates for years to come,” as per the game’s official website. At present, a limited playtest of the shooter is being held by the developers, but the event hasn’t been made open to everyone, requiring players to have an official key to be able to join in.

Perhaps, that is the reason the world has taken to the default CS: GO experience to wait until the next-gen Counter-Strike comes out.