Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
It is covered here for historical and technical reference.
🌐 View the delisted game on Steam store (via Browser | Steam client*)
*Steam required, click here to download Steam.
Counter-Strike 2, a port of CS:GO to the 
Source 2 engine which also introduced new features and redesigned maps. The latest version of CS:GO (on the csgo_legacy branch), along with many older versions (including 2013 demo_viewer), is currently remains available on the beta tab for Counter-Strike 2, which will be supported until Jan 1, 2024. Furthermore, CS:GO is also remain playable on 
Xbox 360 (delisted digitally) and 
PlayStation 3, which runs on older version of the game.
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is the sequel to Counter-Strike: Source, running on the CS:GO engine branch. Originally started as a port of Counter-Strike: Source for the Xbox 360, it was later expanded and eventually turned into a new Counter-Strike game.
Technology-wise, Cascaded Shadow Maps has been implemented, wherein outdoor lighting (which was previously handled by a light_environment entity and produced only static lighting) now casts harsh, directional shadow maps similar to env_projectedtexture.
A console version of CS:GO (for Xbox 360 & PlayStation 3) is also available, but it has not received any major updates since 2013.
On December 6, 2018, the game became free-to-play and introduced a new battle royale game mode called "Danger Zone".
On September 27, 2023, the long-awaited sequel to CS:GO, Counter-Strike 2, which runs on Source 2 engine, featuring improved graphics, redesigned maps and improved gameplay. Counter-Strike 2 was released as a free update to CS:GO, replacing and moving it to a beta branch (csgo_legacy), initially called csgo_demo_viewer for viewing old CS:GO demos, but later renamed to "Legacy CS:GO Version", partially because Valve recognizing that some users are unable to run CS2 due to their hardware or operating systems are incompatible with the game.
Due to the release of CS2 which replace CS:GO on Steam, this meant that the development of major update for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive officially discontinued, aswell as all of it's 147 achievements has been removed server-side, but the game can still obtainable by downloading the mentioned beta branch, which is currently maintained with security updates and bug fixes until Jan 1, 2024. Matchmaking servers for CS:GO was also shutdown with the launch of CS2, therefore this game is only playable offline with bots, LAN or through Community Servers (via the game's server browser).
CS:GO on the console on the other hand, has not been yet discontinued, and remains sold from retailers, but the digital version sold on Xbox 360 was also discontinued early, possibly because of Xbox Live Marketplace was planned to be closed in July 2024. Multiplayer are also functional on the Xbox 360 version.
Features
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive has:
- Real-Time outdoor shadow mapping using the
env_cascade_lightentity - Similar to
env_projectedtexture, used to render harsh, dynamic outdoor shadows
- Light-mapped Ambient Occlusion
- Used to create Ambient Occlusion on Brushes/Displacements
- Map Workshop
- Used to download custom maps from the workshop
- Phong shading on Brushes (added 29 April 2015)
- Allows for the addition of Phong highlights on brushes lit by environment light
- Anisotropic reflection emulation
- Used on cubemaps to emulate anisotropic reflections
- Normal Map blending
- Used to blend together multiple normal maps
- Panorama
- In June 2018, the brand new Source 2 Panorama UI launched into beta, and has been officially used later on.
- OpenGL for Linux-based OSes or Mac[Clarify][confirm]
- Source 2 and games like
Dota 2 and Counter-Strike 2 don't.
Limitations/Bugs
For the list of issues, see this page.
You may use GitHub in order to prevent duplicate or outdated bug reports at the wiki, but please note that Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is no longer being actively developed and has been replaced by Counter-Strike 2 (which does not have the GitHub bug report page), so bugs report related to CS:GO will be likely ignored or marked as closed.
Content
- Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (
csgo)- Can be only obtained through
csgo_legacybeta branch, which would requires 60GB free space (as CS2 is required to be installed alongside CS:GO Legacy).
- Can be only obtained through
Game modes
| Official Game Mode | Match length | Penalties for abandoning? |
Description of official Gameplay | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Competitive
|
20-90 minutes | Yes | The classic game mode: Two teams of 5 players fight in a best of 30 rounds (Short Match: 16). In Bomb Defusal scenarios, Terrorists must plant a bomb at a target and defend it until it explodes - Counter-Terrorists must either stop them from planting or defuse the bomb before it detonates. In Hostage Rescue scenarios, Counter-Terrorists must find and escort a hostage - Terrorists must stop them. There are skill groups for ranked matchmaking so that ideally players are matched with enemies of a similar skill level. In unranked matchmaking, these skill groups are also regarded but not adjusted. |
|
Wingman | 10-30 minutes | Yes | Like Competitive, but adjusted for 2v2 and for a smaller map or a map section, best of 16 rounds, rounds are shorter. |
|
Casual | 10-20 minutes | No | Like Competitive but not binding ("casual"), with simplified and shortened gameplay: best of 15 rounds, shorter freezetime per round, no friendly fire, no team collision, free armor and free defuse kit/cutters. |
|
Deathmatch
|
10 minutes | No | This is a single 10 minute round with instant respawns. The player's goal is to eliminate as many enemies as possible with whatever weapon they wish to use. Weapons are free and only rifles, SMGs, heavy weapons, pistols and the Zeus x27 may be bought. Players have a short invulnerability period to buy weapons before moving. |
|
Danger Zone | 3-15 minutes | No | A Battle Royale mode played on big maps where players win by being the last man (or team) standing. The game starts with all players choosing an insertion point at which they rope down from a helicopter. There is a Danger Zone that starts from the map's borders and advances, making the playable area smaller and smaller and inflicting damage to players touching it. This game mode features numerous unique weapons and entities. |
| War Games | ||||
|
Arms Race | 5-10 minutes | No | This is a single extended round with instant respawn. All players start with the same weapon and get a new one each time they kill an enemy. The progression of unlocked weapons ends with the knife. The first player to get two kills with every weapon plus a kill with the golden knife wins the match. |
|
Demolition | 10-20 minutes | No | This is a fast paced mix of bomb planting and gun progression. There is no buying, you start with a rifle and if you get a kill that round, you get a progressively weaker weapon in the next round. Best of 20 rounds. |
|
Flying Scoutsman | 10-20 minutes | No | Like Casual but every player has a fixed loadout: A Scout and a knife. There is low gravity and no inaccuracy in mid-air, allowing higher and longer jumps and precise shooting, too. |
|
Retakes | 5-10 minutes | No | Each round, 3 Terrorists spawn on a bomb site with a bomb being planted and 4 CTs spawn at fixed locations around it. Each player can choose a loadout card at round start. |
Built-in Maps
Weapons
New weapons include: Molotov grenades, which create a pool of fire in the ground, Decoy grenades, which create fake weapon sounds, and a taser melee weapon, the Zeus x27.
Buy Menu
| Pistol | SMG | Heavy | Rifle | Equipment | Grenade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Other
| Knives | Miscellaneous |  Danger Zone
|
Melee
|
 Co-op Strike
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Giving Weapons
To give yourself a weapon, you can use the cheat command give <entityname>, which should spawn a specified weapon inside the executing player, for example give weapon_awp. Knives and Danger Zone melees might instantly be removed by the game when they would spawn; To overcome this, one can use the command sequence give <entityname>; ent_fire <entityname> addoutput "classname weapon_knifegg" (in one line!) so that the entity "becomes" an entity that is not removed by the game in the same tick. Note that some weapons have a different classname after being given, e.g. give weapon_axe; ent_fire weapon_melee addoutput "classname weapon_knifegg".
Map driven item giving can be done with game_player_equip. To equip weapons using VScript, a game_player_equip entity can be created, used and removed.
Manipulating Weapons
Weapons can be manipulated via I/O, e.g. with ent_fire, and even more using VScript. All weapon entities support the inputs Kill, SetAmmoAmount <int>, SetReserveAmmoAmount <int>, ToggleCanBePickedUp, for example the command ent_fire weapon_ak47 kill removes all AK-47s in the map. To give some inspiration, if weapon is the VScript handle of a weapon entity, we can use weapon.Destroy() to kill it, weapon.GetOwner() == null to check whether it is dropped (true) or carried by a player (false), EntFireByHandle(weapon, "SetReserveAmmoAmount", "0", 0, null, null) to remove its reserve ammo and much more.
Note:When the weapon is killed that a player has deployed, their viewmodel will be broken until they deploy another weapon.
Tip:There are weapon classes whose entities initially have an identical classname keyvalue after being spawned, even though they were created from different classnames. This makes it impossible to target only one of these weapon classes in the I/O system such as MP5-SD and MP7 entities, because entities of both classes will have the classname "weapon_mp7" after being spawned, so firing I/O events to weapon_mp5sd won't have any effect because there is no entity with that classname. This problem can be bypassed in VScript: If we find an entity with the classname "weapon_mp7", we can identify whether it is actually an MP5-SD or an MP7 by checking whether entity.GetModelName() returns either "models/weapons/w_smg_mp5sd_dropped.mdl" or "models/weapons/w_smg_mp7_dropped.mdl". Other entities whose classname changes on spawn are the USP-S, CZ75-Auto, R8 Revolver, M4A1-S, Rescue Kit, Wrench, Hammer, Axe and all knives except weapon_knife and weapon_knifegg.External Links
- Official site
- Blog site (no longer updated)
- Wikipedia:Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
System Requirements
Last updated: 9 Apr 2023
| Minimum: (?) | Recommended: (?) |
|---|---|
|
|
Note:Since the release of CS2, if you want to download CS:GO, you must have Counter-Strike 2 installed (which meant that you need to have 70GB free space to install CS:GO alongside CS2) then go to Steam Library, right click Counter-Strike 2 then Properties... > Betas > Set it to "csgo_legacy".Note:These are unofficial system requirements, as the one from Steam Store page are out of date.Furthermore, CS:GO is no longer available, therefore the information covered above is for historical reference.
Note:* Technically, this game is still playable on Windows XP and Vista (which were originally supported), however support for Steam for these operating systems has been dropped as of 2019, and CG:GO contains SteamWorks DRM, thus these operating systems are no longer supported from running CS:GO. Support for Windows 7 to 8.1 will be dropped in Jan 2024.Note:** Support for 32-bit systems, and older versions of macOS/OS X, have been dropped.Note:The performance in this game mostly relies more on CPU (Processor) than GPU (Graphics card).System requirements may change over time depending how updates affected them.
| ||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||
Steam Deck Compatibility
 PlayableValve's testing indicates Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is Playable on Steam Deck. This game is functional on Steam Deck, but might require extra effort to interact with or configure.
Some in-game text is small and may be difficult to read  All functionality is accessible when using the default controller configuration This game shows Steam Deck controller icons This game's default graphics configuration performs well on Steam Deck [ Learn more ]
|
