With the advent of Counter-Strike 2 (open in new tab), many people are playing CS:GO (open in new tab). This is the number reported by both SteamDB (open in new tab) and Steamcharts (open in new tab) and is well above CS:GO's previous record high. CS:GO's previous record high was in April 2020, when there was a worldwide pandemic lockdown and and many games and Steam itself saw record player numbers.

That's because Counter-Strike 2 was announced this week. It's a real game, it's free, and it takes over everything from Counter-Strike (open in new tab): it takes over from Global Offensive. Everyone's fancy skins are going to Source Engine 2 land. Yes, even that $150,000 gun skin (opens in new tab). It took the CS skin market straight to Crazytown (opens in new tab).

Today's record is over 200,000 more than the previous count. The 'reason' Well, the popular theory is that the beta access for Counter-Strike 2 only goes to people who play a lot of Counter-Strike. (And cheaters and jerks won't be allowed in (opens in new tab)). Either that, or a lot of former and defunct players miss Counter-Strike and just want to experience Counter-Strike in its heyday before CS2 hits and takes away their player count.

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive has been on the rise since launch, and aside from a prolonged slump in 2018, there has been little to no decline over the year. But even during that rock bottom period, daily player counts exceeded 400,000; a free version of CS:GO was released in late 2018, and since then the year-over-year average has stabilized at something like 1 million players.

Reaction to Counter-Strike 2 has been what one would expect from an impressive and interesting update to a classic shooter for both casual and esports players: almost all players are favorable (in a new tab Rich Stanton, head of Counter-Strike, said Valve may have created his dream game, and posted a list of improvements he noticed (opens in new tab) on the site.