I love seeing what’s on top of the Steam chart. Over the last few years, we’ve had some gargantuan surprises rocket to the summit, only to slowly (or sometimes rapidly) fall from grace. Counter-Strike 2, on the other hand, has remained number one on Steam since it launched. Now, it looks like Valve’s FPS is just a spitting distance from overtaking CSGO, seemingly out of nowhere.
On Wednesday September 27 2023, Counter-Strike 2 replaced CSGO forever. Since then, Valve’s premier tactical shooter has remained at the top of the Steam player charts, regularly pulling in well over one million concurrent players at any given time. The multiplayer game has now threatened to hit a new peak, with CSGO’s resting at 1.818 million, a couple of times since then, but we’ve just gotten the closest numbers yet.
As of Sunday February 16, CS2 has officially peaked at a staggering 1,744,015 players. That’s a gap of around 74,000 players between Counter-Strike 2’s highest-ever peak, and CSGO’s own record. We could potentially witness an entirely new player high any day now. For reference, there have only ever been three games to surpass CS2’s player count: Palworld, Black Myth: Wukong, and PUBG.
So, what’s driving Counter-Strike 2 to new highs all of a sudden? Well, Premier Season 2 started at the end of January, and it made some pretty big changes to the game. The Vertigo map was exchanged for Train, the M4A4 had its price reduced, and the FAMAS even had its overall accuracy improved as well.
The PGL Cluj-Napoca tournament also started in the middle of February, with 16 teams heading to Romania to compete for a $1,250,000 prize pool. If the tournament has indeed played a role in Counter-Strike 2’s increased player count, the event is running until Sunday February 23, so the numbers could go even higher before it ends.
According to SteamDB, the Counter-Strike 2 player count has been steadily rising since mid-January, which follows a slight dip at the end of 2024. Are we about to get an all-time high for what’s easily the most popular game on Valve’s platform? Only time will tell.
If you fancy giving the game a go make sure you check out the Counter-Strike 2 system requirements, alongside the best Counter-Strike 2 codes.
You can also follow us on Google News for daily PC games news, reviews, and guides, or join our community Discord to stay in the know.