On Saturday, May 6, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive broke its all-time concurrent player peak record on PC, 11 years after its release on Steam.
The free-to-play FPS reached a whopping 1.8 million concurrent users according to SteamDB, surpassing its previous record of 1.5 million concurrents (which it recently set in March 2023). CS: GO now has the second-highest all-time concurrent player peak (according to SteamDB), trailing only PUBG: Battlegrounds, which surpassed a staggering 3.25 million concurrent users in January 2018.
CS: GO launched in 2012 and is developed and published by Valve, the studio behind the Steam platform and many hit games including Portal, Half-Life, and Left 4 Dead.
A new version of the game titled Counter-Strike 2 is in development and will launch as a free upgrade to CS: GO sometime in the summer of 2023. Counter-Strike 2 was rumored for a long time, and Valve finally confirmed its existence this spring.
Players can currently participate in a limited test for Counter-Strike 2, which will run ahead of the full release later this summer. Counter-Strike 2 will replace CS: GO, and will include improved visuals, better performance, and new features. CS: GO accounts and items will carry over to the new game.
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