There’s a Strange, Clever Way You Can Still Play ‘Counter-Strike: Global Offensive’ Online

As far as the wider Counter-Strike community is concerned, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is dead. Originally released in 2012, CS:GO became the flagship title in Valve’s Counter-Strike tactical shooter franchise. The game bridged the gap between Counter-Strike: Source and Counter-Strike 1.6, bringing the competitive community together and ushering in a decade that made CS the king of FPS esports.

On Sept. 27, 2023, Valve launched CS2 as a Source 2 engine port for CS:GO. The port, which was always intended as complete “upgrade” for CS:GO, effectively replaced the latter on Steam. CS2 has CS:GO’s Steam app ID, takes CS:GO’s place in users’ Steam library, and even steals CS:GO’s playtime count. Valve clearly has no intentions of keeping CS:GO alive as a separate iteration of Counter-Strike, and the game remains inaccessible through the Steam Store.

But there’s still a way to play Counter-Strike: Global Offensive on PC. And you can even hop in online games, too, provided you can find a server running your build of CS:GO.

How to play CS:GO on Steam

Valve still has a copy of CS:GO available on its servers for players to check out: A demo viewing client. Originally, Valve offered this build so players can go back and watch old, in-game recordings of their matches. It’s a nifty feature when you consider just how many competitive matches and tournaments have been played through CS:GO over the years.

But this version also holds a little gift to the larger Counter-Strike community: It includes the full CS:GO client, complete with access to players’ weapon skins and agents. So you can literally download the build, fire it up, and hop into a game, just like nothing ever changed.

You can even play online with it—to a certain extent.

First, boot up Steam, and head on over to your library. Look for Counter-Strike 2. Right-click the game listing, then select “Properties.” From there, head over to the Betas tab and look for the “Beta Participation” section. Select “csgo_demo_viewer – 1.38.7.9.” This will download a whole copy of CS:GO to your computer.

Don’t worry, this download won’t replace your copy of CS2. Every time you boot up CS2, the game will ask you if you want to play the CS:GO demo build, or the latest iteration of Counter-Strike 2.

Once your download is complete, just run your copy of CS2. You’ll see a “Select Launch Options” screen, which gives you the option to play “Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (Demo Viewer, 2023).” Fire it up, and voilà! You’re back playing CS:GO.

All your CS:GO era weapon skins and agents can still be equipped. If you recently acquired any CS:GO cosmetics, you can retroactively equip those too. Case in point, I got my hands on Safecracker Voltzmann on Sept. 29, two days after CS2’s launch, yet I can still play as her in the CS:GO demo viewer build.

Bot matches work perfectly fine as well, so if you want to sweat out some 5v5 games with Valve’s AI, you can go ahead and boot right into a single-player match.

Now that CS2 is out, can you still play CS:GO online?

Yes, and no. For one, the official Valve CS:GO servers are completely shut down, and third-party servers like FACEIT have seemingly transferred over to CS2. This means all matchmaking services no longer function in the CS:GO demo viewer build. No deathmatch, no casual, and no competitive Premier matches. It’s impossible to acquire your skill group via CS:GO, for that matter; if you want to play competitive CS, you’ll have to go to CS2.

However, you can still play CS:GO online. According to YouTuber TroubleChute, community servers running CS:GO off the 1.38.7.9 build can still be used and accessed. Theoretically, that means a Counter-Strike community or friend group could host their own CS:GO server and invite players to hop online and click heads together.

Granted, playing CS:GO online with a custom server is a bit complicated. Per TroubleChute, you can no longer use the community browser feature, as the browser’s underlying programming isn’t set up for CS:GO’s demo viewer build (and many servers have made the jump over to CS2). However, if you have the specific IP for a server running a copy of CS:GO, you can manually type in the server via the developer console to hop on and join a game.

To do this, just activate the developer console (under “Settings,” the “Game” tab, and the “Game” subtab), press the developer console button (“`”), and type “connect [your server IP here, sans brackets]”. As TroubleChute demonstrates, you’ll be able to hop onto a live CS:GO server and play.

So if you truly despise Counter-Strike 2, or if you want to run one more match on Dust2 with the homies before grinding out CS2’s competitive ladder, Valve has you covered. Sort of.

(featured image: Valve)