Counter-Strike 2 was launched last year; The predecessor Global Offensive is now officially a thing of the past.
In September the final starting signal was given for the long-awaited sequel Counter-Strike 2, which replaced the long-running hit Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. The long-standing crowd puller in the tactical shooter genre has now officially been retired by Valve as support for it is being discontinued.
In the future, the focus of further development work will be on the current Counter-Strike 2, which is why Counter-Strike: Global Offensive will not go completely offline. With the official end of support, all that remains is the current version of the several-year-old title, which will be described as a legacy product in the future.
If you want to continue playing Global Offensive, you can do so as before, but bug fixes and improvements are no longer expected. In this respect, it is a “frozen build” of the game that is no longer being worked on. According to an update from Valve, this came into effect on January 1, 2024. The only restriction compared to the previous support version of the game: there will no longer be official matchmaking in the future.
For more than a decade, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive was considered one of the hottest and most played shooters of all time. The game dominated the Steam and PC communities with sometimes insane player numbers, a prominent e-sports scene and a thriving skin market.
In the future, all eyes will be on Counter-Strike 2, which will not be made available to all players. The sequel is no longer available for 32-bit systems and there is no longer a macOS version. So if you wanted to play on an Apple computer, you will probably only have to use the legacy version of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.
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