Counter-Strike: Global Offensive breaks its concurrent player peak record for the second time this month

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive hit a new concurrent player high over the weekend.

Depending upon the source, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive’s concurrent new record is 924,045 players if you refer to Steam Charts (thanks PCGN), or it’s an even more impressive 933,748 players if you go by SteamDB. Either way, both figures beat the game’s prior concurrent record of 876,575 set earlier this month. Prior to that, a record of 850,485 players was set in April 2016.

Right now it’s unclear why CS:GO is experiencing such high demand. While some attribute the rise to the game’s growing popularity in China – which is experiencing higher than usual use regardless since many players are either quarantined or choosing to stay indoors as coronavirus infections continue to rise – or it was the game’s new battle pass or free-to-play expansion that has successfully hooked new players. 

Valve made Counter-Strike: Global Offensive free-to-play at the end of 2018 and to celebrate, it also launched an all-new Battle Royale mode. At the time, Valve described Danger Zone as “a fast-paced battle royale game mode built on CS:GO‘s tactical gameplay where players use their wits, skill, and resources to fight to the finish”. 

Valve recently removed almost a thousand games and soundtracks from its Steam storefront, moving 980 titles to its banned apps list. As developer Alexandra Frock noted at the time on Twitter, “a good chunk” of the removed games were linked to a single Russian publisher, Dagestan Technology, which was operating under a number of different names. It also recently discontinued the production of its Steam Controller. 

The Steam controller proved divisive upon its launch in 2015. Some people love the controller, and use it regularly, while others failed to see the advantage of the touch panel instead of a second analogue stick.