^{Image: Valve}

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is more popular than ever, according to these Steam numbers.

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive set a new peak concurrent user record on Steam this week, a whopping 11 years after launching on the platform. The game hit 1,320,219 users at its all-time peak on February 11, right before the recent IEM Katowice grand finals.

Counter-Strike’s gameplay loop has been replicated in one form or another since its first entry was released all the way back in 2000. Its latest entry CS:GO will be familiar to anyone who’s played older games in the franchise, seeing as its core gameplay has stayed largely the same. That has clearly worked out in its favour.

The first-person shooter last hit a record high of concurrent users with 1,308,963 players back in 2020. That was during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when most of the games industry was seeing a huge spike in profits and player numbers while the rest of the world was forced to self-isolate at home. That record wasn’t broken until this week, with about 12,000 more players showing up for a new all-time high of user numbers, as spotted by PC Gamer.

SteamDB currently lists CS:GO as the most popular game on Steam by far, with Hogwarts Legacy trailing behind in second place by about 300,000 less concurrent players. The games below that hover somewhere around the 200,000-range, but CS:GO beats them all by a significant margin at more than 600,000 players - though this will likely change over the next few days.

As for what exactly is driving all these players to the game, it could be that this is just an exciting week for CS:GO in general. IEM Katowice concluded just recently, with G2 Esports claiming the coveted championship trophy after an unbelievable winning streak. Another possibility is that we're all just feeling a bit nostalgic. Who doesn't like CS:GO?

Counter-Strike: GO breaks all-time player record 11 years after Steam launch