Counter-Strike: Global Offensive breaks player record

The concurrent player record for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) has been broken with over 1.3 million players in-game.

The details:

• According to SteamDB, the now 11-year-old tactical FPS has broken its previous record for the number of concurrent players with 1,320,219 players in-game on February 11, 2023, at 1 p.m. UTC.
• CS:GO’s previous record was 1,308,963 on April 16, 2020, so given that the old record was set during the height of a global pandemic that kept everyone indoors, the new peak is all the more impressive.
• The title still holds third place on the list of Steam's highest concurrent player counts, beating DOTA 2 with 1.295 million but sitting behind Lost Ark with 1.325 million and PUBG: Battlegrounds with a massive 3.257 million back in January 2018.
• CS:GO’s presence in the esports scene is likely to have contributed to its numbers this past weekend with ESL’s IEM Katowice tournament taking place. The tournament was won by G2 Esports, who took home $400,000 of the $1 million prize pool as well as direct entry to IEM Cologne.

Other notable Valve news:

• Valve has announced that Team Fortress 2 will receive a major update for the first time in years. In a blog post, the developer announced that it would be working with the community via the Steam Workshop to put together an update full of maps, items, taunts, and effects for a large summer update.
• The company’s repository suffered a massive leak last month, resulting in cut and altered content from Half-Life, CS:GO, and Team Fortress 2 making its way to the public. Included in the leak was 61 GB of Team Fortress 2 assets, including unused maps and items created during the game's 15 years on the market.