Valve: No plans to launch CS2 on macOS

Following the launch of Counter-Strike 2 on September 27th, a small minority of Counter-Strike players on macOS noticed they were unable to launch the new game, with it quickly being apparent that Apple's operating system would no longer be supported. Today, Valve have confirmed the news in a support article that they will not be releasing CS2 on macOS nor will they support the game on 32-bit operating systems or ones that can only run DirectX 9.

In the support topic regarding the decision, Valve noted that less than 1% of CS:GO players were using macOS, 32-bit operating systems, or DirectX 9 graphics. As such, it seems Valve have determined that spending developer resources on these niches communities wasn't worth continued support heading into a new game.

For context, overall macOS users only make up 1.43% of users on Steam, while 64-bit operating systems have been mainstream since 2006 when Windows Vista released with a 64-bit version, while DirectX 10 released in 2006. As such, it can be understood why Valve chose to drop support for niche and extremely outdated gaming configurations.

Fortunately though for macOS users who have been left in the cold, Valve have announced they will be offering refunds to any gamers who primarily ran the game on macOS during CS:GO's history. As the game has been free to play since 2018, this will likely be an incredibly small minority but its a nice gesture from Valve to those who, for whatever reason, will never become PC gamers.

In this support announcement, Valve also confirmed an end date for the legacy version of CS:GO (formerly labeled as a beta branch on Steam), with support coming to an end on January 1st. Presumably, the game will be maintained for watching old demos and hosting private servers, but it is clear Valve is looking towards the future of Counter-Strike.