Valve's first-person shooter Counter-Strike 2 has hit its highest player count since May 2023, and it isn't really clear why that's happened.
Counter-Strike 2 was surprise-released in September 2023, essentially serving as both a sequel to Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and a major update for that game as well. In May that year, when it was still Global Offensive, the game hit its all-time Steam player count high of 1,818,773 (per SteamDB).
This weekend, again according to SteamDB's numbers (with thanks to Dexerto), Counter-Strike 2 managed to hit a concurrent player count of 1,741,837, representing the game's highest player numbers since the Steam launch of both Global Offensive and Counter-Strike 2 itself.
It's worth noting that Counter-Strike 2's numbers (which were originally those of Global Offensive, lest we forget) have been trending upwards since 2012, and that the game has routinely been playing host to over a million players per day since 2022.
Still, there weren't any major CS2 esports tournaments over the weekend, and as far as I know, no major Counter-Strike 2 content creators have done anything particularly noteworthy over the past few days either.
It's entirely possible that Counter-Strike 2's numbers have simply hit this high as part of the aforementioned general trend upwards for the game, but it's still interesting (and no doubt encouraging for Valve, given how much the shooter rakes in) to see figures like this for the game.
Will Counter-Strike 2 manage to eclipse its all-time player high within the next few weeks? If the player count continues to rise, then it's pretty much an inevitability, which can only mean more skin sales for Valve. Hooray, I guess!
If you're still in the dark about Counter-Strike 2, it's a multiplayer first-person shooter that pits teams of terrorists against their counter-terrorist foes.
The game essentially plays the same as its predecessor; it's a reflex-based FPS with a focus on observation, quick thinking, and objective-based gameplay (unless you're playing in deathmatch, in which case it's a chaotic free-for-all).
When it made the switch to Counter-Strike 2, Valve's shooter got itself a new Source 2-based coat of paint, as well as new server architecture, updated maps, and more.
Counter-Strike 2 is available to play right now for free on PC via Steam.
