Counter Strike History
Note: reading this will give you some major feels!
It’s been a long time since Gordon Freeman’s first train ride through Black Mesa in Half-Life 1. Some of you may be too young to remember, but it is, nevertheless, a unique piece of gaming history.
It paved the way for the evolution of FPS and brought gamers together over a common cause. What once seemed like a perfectly scripted, single-player goodness quickly spun off into one of the most played video games of all time. We now play its latest rendition (CS: GO) for hours and sometimes without even blinking.
But what made Counter-Strike what it is today?
Simple. Its community.
Players played during the day and programmed during the night. As a matter of fact, it took 17 beta versions for Counter-Strike to become alive as an independent entity. That was in 1999. Just eight years later and here we are: professional players are rock stars 2.0, and millions of people are playing, watching, and even betting on csgo.
As an avid gamer, there are some things you just have to know. One of those is the history of Counter-Strike. Keep reading and travel once again through the 9-year development history of one of our most favorite games.
The Beginnings
In 1998, Valve developed its first game, a first-person shooter video game called Half-Life that Sierra Studios released with a massive bang. Players from all around the world ended up loving the game so much that an entire community developed around it, and people started making individual mods.
Due to this massive and competitive gaming society, it didn’t take long for a Canadian programmer Minh ‘Gooseman’ Le to create a beta version of his Half-Life mod, Counter-Strike. It took him and his friend Jess Cliffe one and a half months of coding to create the mod’s first beta.
It started with only four maps and nine weapons, but the popular setting was still there. Players played 5v5 matches choosing to be either the Terrorists or the Counter-Terrorists, the two famous teams still used today. Furthermore, open development paved the way for 17 betas before the official release of the game.
Valve Steps In
After two long years of community-built mods and the fifth beta of Counter-Strike, Valve acquired Counter-Strike and the developers working on the game, including Minh Le and Jess Cliffe. Then Valve finally released Counter-Strike for PC in September 2000, making it the official launch of the Counter-Strike series.
It was played on land only, but it featured two massively popular maps — Assault (cs_assault) and Cobblestone (de_cbble). As a mod, the game already had a massive following. Still, the release of an official game by the makers who created the game on which Counter-Strike had been modeled launched it into the stratosphere and made it synonymous with competitive gaming.
Players had experience with many multiplayer games, but nothing was like Counter-Strike. It was never easy for people to enter a match and play a few rounds with their friends or strangers. This was before the golden-era of the Internet and fast speeds, so playing online with such ease was practically unheard of.
Anyone could play whenever they wanted, and they could only play for a couple of minutes due to the game’s fast-paced nature.
Many Updates Come
Valve continued to update Counter-Strike and introduced its Anti-Cheat system or VAC in 2002. Cheating, or hacking, was already a big problem, but this system almost eliminated it as players would get an immediate ban after the system caught them. This was loosened up later on, so players kept finding new ways to cheat.
Counter-Strike updates in 2003
Valve also released one of the most popular Counter-Strike maps, Dust II (de_dust2), in version 1.1, and several new weapons for terrorists and counter-terrorists. However, version 1.5 is the last one before the big bang in 2003, when the last major update of the original Counter-Strike series, the famous version 1.6, was released. It introduced a brand new, sparkling tactical shield, snipers with crosshairs, and several backend updates.
Counter-Strike updates in 2004
In 2004, Valve, Turtle Rock Studios, and Ritual Entertainment created Counter-Strike: Condition Zero, and Valve, together with Sierra, released it. The game featured both singleplayer and multiplayer modes, but it performed poorly. The makers then followed up with a single mission campaign called “The Deleted Scenes.” This didn’t help the ratings much, as the game remained panned by players and critics for being incredibly out-of-date.
Simultaneously, the company used its new source engine to overhaul and improve the original Counter-Strike. Even the graphics were improved, but the community developed around 1.6 was still in love with the game, so most players weren’t interested in switching to the brand new Counter-Strike: Source. All in all, it was tough to get players to switch to a new game, and most preferred playing the old game as nothing seemed to be able to replace its greatness.
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Era
With players loving the old gameplay so much, Valve didn’t release anything new all the way until 2012, when the company created the now-famous Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. CS: GO was released with a brand new engine that completely recreated the game and introduced matchmaking. People loved it, so it’s no wonder that it now has around 11 million players every month who are gathered in an incredibly competitive scene, playing in numerous Valve-sponsored events and tournaments.
After a while, it has once again become clear that players aren’t ready to switch to anything new, as CS: GO‘s popularity kept rising, especially with the introduction of numerous esports tournaments that mostly centered on Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.
Consequently, Valve has been happy with keeping things as they are, all the while promoting tournaments where players and teams can win massive amounts of money. Valve hasn’t released any major update nor new game after CS: GO, except the occasional spin-off, like Counter-Strike Nexon: Zombies, where most of the mechanics are the same, but the game features zombies.
