Summary
The recent release ofCounter-Strike 2has attracted an impressive amount of players. After some months of drip-feeding information to those who did not get invited into theCounter-Strike 2limited beta, Valve has finally dropped the curtain on the latest iteration of its popular tactical first-person shooter, replacing the 11-year-oldCounter-Strike: Global Offensive.
Counter-Strike: Global Offensivehas been shattering its player count recordsin 2023, possibly thanks to the news that the game was to finally receive a significant update.Counter-Strike 2is essentially an enhanced port ofCS:GOto Valve’s Source 2 engine from the nearly 2 decades old Source engine. This port has been anticipated by many players for years afterDota 2was ported from Source to Source 2 back in 2015.
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Counter-Strike 2has attracted over 1.3 million players in the day since it launched. This has placed it right at the top of SteamDB’s “Most played games” chart, outstripping the number 2 titleDOTA 2by nearly 800,000 players. The all-time peak concurrent player count set byCS:GOstands at over 1.8 million. It remains to be seen ifCounter-Strike 2will top this record, but it’s not outside the realm of possibility. The improved visuals and mechanics may be enough to attract enough new players to break it in the coming days or weeks.
It is difficult to gauge how the community feels aboutCounter-Strike 2so soon after launch, but the player numbers are promising. TheCounter-Strikecommunity has waited a long time for the Source 2 port.One of the biggest issues withCounter-Strikeover time has been hacking and cheating, as such an improved anti-cheat system has been at the top of many a player’sCounter Strike 2wishlist. It’s probably going to take some time until improvements, if any, are noticed.
Those worried aboutCounter-Strike 2being flooded with hackersshould know that bans fromCS:GOcarry over to the updated title, and that Valve has introduced a new anti-cheat system called VAC Live that may be significantly more effective than the original Valve Anti Cheat. There may be some initial issues now that the game has been released to the general public, but nothing grave has been reported for the moment. With all that said, the numbers seen indicate thatCounter-Strikeis more popular than ever.
