CSGO sets new concurrent player peak following announcement of Counter-Strike 2

Valve’s announcement of Counter-Strike 2 has put the community into a frenzy about what comes next for the franchise, and it led to the biggest player counts Counter-Strike: Global Offensive has seen as of this writing. The game’s concurrent player count hit all-new highs, pushing over 1.5 million players online at the same time. This is coming off the back of the news that not only is Counter-Strike 2 launching this summer, but it will swap out CSGO as a whole.

CSGO’s new concurrent player peak was recently spotted on its SteamDB page. As of March 26, 2023, the game has amassed a concurrent high of 1,519,457 players on at the same time. This was over 200,000 more than the previous peak CSGO had seen in its long history. CSGO has always been popular and is almost constantly sitting at the top of Steam’s most-played charts. Moreover, the game is still highly viewed on Twitch with a 24-hour peak of over 400k viewers even now. It has yet to beat its most viewers yet, though time may be running out for that particular accolade.

SteamDB shows that CSGO had an explosive weekend, reaching its highest concurrent player count in the game's decade of existence.
Source: SteamDB

The big reason behind CSGO’s player surge is almost certainly the official confirmation of Counter-Strike 2 by Valve as of last week. Though the opening volley was a bit odd, coming out as a series of developer diary videos, Counter-Strike 2 has quickly caught everyone’s attention with the fact that it’s one of a few games being built from the ground up in Valve’s Source 2 engine. This will include designing a modder’s workshop in which players can use Source 2 tools to build their own maps. More than that, it may also be the playerbase’s last hurrah in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, as when Counter-Strike 2 launches, it will completely replace CSGO. Nonetheless, player progression, items, and cosmetics will transfer over to Counter-Strike 2.

CSGO has been supplying players with an incredibly competitive FPS for years, so it’s cool to see it hit one of what could be its last highs before the move to a new generation in the franchise. As we await more details on Counter-Strike 2, stay tuned here at Shacknews.