CS2 reaches highest player count since launch month

Ahead of Counter-Strike 2's first Major and off the back of the "A Call to Arms" update, Valve's shooter has posted its highest player count since October 2023 — with 1,345,776 active players being recorded by Steam Charts on February 25th. The number is particularly notable as it is the highest since Counter-Strike 2's launch month, which ran from September 27th to October 27th, and would also leave February 2024 as CS:GO/CS2's eighth best month in the two titles' combined history.

The rebound in player numbers since the game fell to 1.1 million active players back in November comes as Valve have been hard at work improving the game to fix numerous issues present at the game's launch that affected the core game experience. Additionally, the release of the "A Call to Arms" update likely helped bring back a number of players due to the addition of a new case and other cosmetic content.

While the game is still far from a perfect experience, evidence clearly demonstrates that alarmist accounts of CS2 being "unplayable" and a "dead game" are highly overblown. With rumors of more content coming to the game in the future and the general uptick in interest around the game during Majors, the number of active players is likely to continue rising in the near future.