Love it or hate it, there is no denying the cultural juggernaut that is Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Since it was released in 2012, CS: GO has become more popular each year. As of Saturday, the game surpassed its all-time record of concurrent players and boasted over 1,320,219 players in-game.
After covering all of the games being sunset (a word which here means having a pillow pressed over their head until they finally stop kicking and screaming) over the last few weeks, from Apex Legends Mobile to Rumbleverse and even Marvel’s Avengers, it’s incredible to think how long CS: GO has been around. For those who might not have been around the gaming space for long enough to remember, CS: GO started its life as a mod for Half-Life and eventually morphed into this wildly popular thing from there.
What makes the fact that CS: GO is still breaking player records 11 years on incredible is that in a world that encourages constant change and evolution to remain popular, look at Fortnite, for example; CS: GO hasn’t changed all that fundamentally over the last decade. Sure, there are seasonal events, cosmetics, and game modes. Still, the core game has always remained consistent with the set formula.
If you’ve always wanted to try out CS: GO, this is the perfect time to dive in. The game is free-to-play on Steam, and even though players love to grumble and moan, it is a lot of fun – player numbers don’t lie, even if the players do.