CS:GO continues to smash records as its final Major draws near

An astronomical concurrent player peak as well as average players peak has been set with just two days to go before the BLAST.tv Paris Major begins.

Throughout 2023, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive has kept making headlines as it continues to surpass player records time and time again.

Before this year, the previous peak of concurrent players was set just after the COVID-19 pandemic hit in April 2020, when just over 1.3 million players were in the game at the same time. In February 2023, a new record was set of over 1.35 million concurrent players, and that number has continued to rise.

In March, CS:GO reached the 1.5 million mark for the first time, and in April it also broke the average players record from three years ago, surpassing the 900,000 threshold.

On May 6, as the final Major in Global Offensive draws near in Paris and we grow ever closer to summer's release of Counter-Strike 2, a new astronomical high has been set. That now sits at 1,802,853 peak concurrent players according to Steamcharts — up nearly a whopping 300,000 from the previous March record. A new average players record has also been set at 934,359 over the past 30 days.

Despite the game continuing to break records this year, the 2 million mark of concurrent players seemed too far out of reach — until today. Could the nearly 11-year-old game get there before its successor comes?