CS:GO popularity debate settled with stats never seen since 2021

CS:GO peaked at 1,133,610 concurrent players over the past weekend, registering its highest peak since April 2021, according to SteamCharts’ tracking.

Curiously, the peak came at a time when there are no new huge updates, no big tournaments being played by professionals, and no new content to play for like a recently-launched operation. The last newsworthy update Valve released for CS:GO was after IEM Rio Major in November 2022, when it took Dust II away from the active duty map pool to open space for Anubis, in addition to also nerfing the AWP and M4A1-S.

On top of registering its highest peak since April 2021, CS:GO hasn’t had a higher average number of players (658,932.4 in the past 30 days) since May 2021, when it had an average of 659,888.9 people playing the game.

This shows that despite the lack of content like new operations, game modes, or skins, CS:GO remains one of the most-played FPS titles in the world. Valve’s game doesn’t get many notable updates throughout the year like VALORANT and Overwatch 2, some of its competitors.

There are rumors since last year, however, that the long-awaited Source 2 engine could be implemented in CS:GO anytime soon, which could attract new players to the game in addition to those who have abandoned CS:GO due to the lack of updates.

The only guaranteed update CS:GO has in the near future, though, is the Major-themed update. The BLAST.tv Paris Major will be played in May and Valve will possibly add team and player stickers to the game once again around that time.