Many games achieve extremely great fame when they are released, but not all of them are capable of retaining the number of players that Counter-Strike still has today, and this title remains one of the most played for 25 years. after its release.
One of the first competitive shooters, born from a mod of another game
When we talk about competitive games, it is clear that the first one we have to name is a shooter that since its birth, managed to establish itself as one of the best titles that we could find, a fame that led it to be one of the games that could not be missing in a LAN party. But not many know the origin of this game, and although we can now enjoy a game that is independent, it was really born as a modification of another title that is even older.
Counter-Strike, as we know it, originally arose from a mod for Half-Life, the first game that Valve developed after its founding, and which shortly after would give life to the game. shooter most famous competitive of the era of the 2000, Counter Strike 1.6. This complete modification of the game was created by Minh Le and Jess Cliffe, and it didn’t really start to have real success until version 1.6, which is why the first version of this game is called this way.
Years later it established itself as the most played title on Steam
It didn’t take long for this game to awaken the curiosity of the players, as well as that of the Half-Life developers themselves, who saw in this modification a window to create one of the titles that, shortly after, would become the undisputed leader of the games. shooter competitive. And years after consolidating its leadership, Valve began to use this IP as its own game, going from being a modification to being an independent development.
The two titles that came after the mod were Counter-Strike: Condition Zero and Counter-Strike: Source, both came out in 2004 and were a before and after in the saga, and while CS: CZ was the first and last in the saga to offer a single-player mode, while CS: Source became much more than a game. And the third version of the game managed to create a community that not only played the base title, but as with Half-Life, they began to modify the game to add all kinds of modes that increasingly attracted more players.
A before and after, CS:GO represented a big change in the franchise
Years later, the saga presented the biggest change to date, not only at a graphic level, but also in terms of gameplay and mechanics, since it was a complete facelift for the game, which came at the perfect time, with the change of the era that represented the 2011-2013 era in video games. During the time of its launch, the game already managed to gain a large enough audience to create a competitive scene, but the arrival of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, along with other competitive games, marked a before and after in the industry. .
During this time, it was in which the beginnings of what we currently know as eSports They began to consolidate, offering events that to date were only niche, in which many players still did not consider themselves professionals, since as such, it did not exist as a job. And this title was one of the first games to offer an online leaderboard, which allowed players to differentiate their skill level through the ranks they could reach.
Current events, a game that continues to be king
Now, with the 25th anniversary of the saga, we have a new title that came out a year ago, and that still continues to have one of the largest daily player bases in online games, and that is Counter Strike, still currently has an average of one and a half million daily players. The title, as happened in 2013, has undergone a great change in terms of graphics, but maintaining, at a strategic and gameplay level, the same mechanics as a quarter of a century ago, one of the main reasons why today Today, it continues to attract both new and veteran players.
