The official Counter-Strike account posted to celebrate 25 years since the release of the mod that changed competitive FPS forever. 

"Happy 25th birthday to the biggest video game ever made, Counter Strike," said the modern counter Strike 2 team. "The half-life mod that created the community, created memories and established the largest esport of them all. We are grateful to have the most passionate players in the game.  

"Here it is over 25."

Counter-Strike was a Half-Life mod first developed by Minh "Gooseman"Le, who was finished in college and wanted to create a game project that would help his career prospects. Le had previously made various modifications for Quake, but wanted to branch off Valve's GoldSrc engine to make it a hit. Le has said in the past that it took about a month and a half to program Counter-Strike's "beta one" after Valve made the GoldSrc software development kit available, and by that time co-creator Jess "Cliffe" Cliffe had been involved in the project to work on various elements, including maps.

The Counter-Strike theme was inspired by Le's own interest in special military units, as well as video games like Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six in 1998. The first beta was released in 1999-6-19, while the other was by the time of the 5th beta, the interest in the project was so high that Valve approached the pair. Valve purchased Counter-Strike IP and employed both creators before releasing the first production version of the game in 2000-9.

Since then, Counter-Strike has seen various iterations: Counter-Strike: Condition Zero (2004); Counter-Strike: Source (2004); Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (2012); and Counter-Strike2 (2023). But whatever the version that is your particular poison, there's a reason Counter-Strike is showing such longevity. The game has always been just so fun.

Interestingly, some players' memories of the early days of the game are tied to PC Gamer magazine. "Still remember playing it in the first beta on the LAN from the CD you got in PC Magazine, "I think that means I'm old" and writing spirr3 with a smiley emoji."

"I have a PC gamer DVD with Beta 5 on it, along with the first PCG review written by Chris Auty," writes F_A_F."It's from April 2000 but this week] PC Gamer magazine had a DVD or CD on the front cover for demos, updates, mods, etc. This was before the days of extensive DSL coverage so buying a magazine for file updates was really popular."

"Times like this, I want to keep all those old PC gamer magazines," writes No_Reindeer_5543. "My father got the first copy when it came out and then subscribed. I remember when they first started sending 3.5-inch discs. "Tell your old man he has a taste, No_Reindeer_5543.

Counter-Strike, most recently in the form of CS:GO, then CS2, is the world's most popular and competitive FPS, consistently the most-played game on Steam, with less than 28 million players per month, according to its official website. Not bad for a project that Minh Le thought might help him land the job.

The launch of Counter-Strike2 took over everything from CS:GO, but it has also been replaced and the game feels a good place. Launch Valve is slowly adding the quality-of-life features ("fine") that players want, and promises that important additions like new weapons will come. If you want an idea of what the future might hold, PC Gamer spoke exclusively to Valve's Counter-Strike2 team shortly after the game's release.

It's one aspect of counter-strike, but the wider competitive community has its own life and continues to throw wild stories: like this guy who was somehow banned for life and twice accused of cannabis. All so often the skin sells for a ludicrous amount of money. "The door was jammed."Probably my favorite - ever stupid game video.

And you can always rely on what Valve calls "the most passionate player in the game" for some good jokes. Easy celebrates 25 years of counter strike with this idea: "Damn, Leonardo DiCaprio is going to stop playing this game."