Does CSGO Still Exist After The CS2 Update?

CS2 could be regarded as an entirely new game due to its plethora of new features, engine upgrades, graphical fidelity improvements, UI overhauls, and more. However, CS2 was instead released as an “update” to CSGO and has, as a result, completely replaced CSGO’s presence on Steam. CS2 has retained all of its previous reviews from CSGO, and all CSGO skins and items have been retained and merged when CS2 launched.

Counter-Strike 2 after replacing Counter-Strike: Global Offensive on Steam

When Valve was working on CS2, they most likely discussed whether to keep CSGO and CS2 as separate titles or merge them together and have CS2 take over CSGO entirely. They eventually opted for CS2 to completely replace CSGO, likely in an attempt to keep their player base united in one game, and to ensure they could gather lots of player feedback to improve the game as quickly as possible. Additionally, this allowed them to keep their skin economy and marketplace active without issues. Finally, this also meant that they could fully focus their time and effort on CS2, without having to split their team into multiple teams, managing both CSGO and CS2 at once.

If you find yourself wanting to relive the good old days of CSGO, here’s how you can access it and re-download the game:

1. Install CS2 on Steam
2. Right-click your CS2 install in your Steam library, and press “Properties”
3. In the “Betas” tab, select “csgo_legacy – Legacy version of CSGO” from the “Beta Participation” dropdown menu
4. After completion, your CS2 install will update and show the tag “[csgo_legacy]” by its name in your Library.

After completing the steps above, you will be prompted with a selection menu the next time you launch CS2. Select the “Play Legacy Version of CSGO” to launch CSGO whenever you want to re-live your CS nostalgia.

At the end of the day, CSGO does still exist after the CS2 update. However, it will never be playable the same way it once was. If you really want to play CSGO after the release of CS2, you’ll need to jump through a few hoops and will be left unable to play online matchmaking. Regardless, its legacy will live on forever as one of the best FPS games of all time.