CS:GO hits new player peak on eve of the BLAST Paris Major

Closing in on 11 years since its release, CS:GO continues to break records as the FPS registered a new concurrent player count on May 7—shattering its previous record by over 300,000 players.

With just hours until the start of the BLAST Paris Major, the confirmed final Major tournament for Global Offensive, 1,818,773 players were recorded in-game according to the statistics site SteamDB. This smashes the game’s last peak of 1,507,212 players set just six weeks ago.

The average player count for CS:GO has risen by an incredible 40 percent since this time last year, and while peak limits are approaching two million concurrents, the game has recorded an average of over 900,000 players daily. Even during downtime, the FPS is surpassing all other titles on Steam by a clear margin, with second-placed Dota 2 peaking at 677,129.

The factors affecting CS:GO’s rise are numerous—the announcement of Counter-Strike 2, the return of the Major and the viewer pass, Paris Major sticker capsules, the new Anubis case—but when they all happen at once, it’s a perfect storm that has boosted player counts into the stratosphere.

Interest in the title is at its highest in years, with hundreds of thousands also tuning into streaming and live tournaments, with year-over-year growth since the game’s “revival” following COVID. Over 2.7 million viewers turned in for the PGL Stockholm Major in 2021 according to EsportsCharts—the first offline Major since the pandemic took hold.

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Related: BLAST Paris CS:GO Major: How to watch, scores, standings, and results

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While the PGL Antwerp (2.2 million) and IEM Rio (1.4 million) Majors couldn’t come close to the viewership or the hype of the first LAN Major in over a year at the time, with the storylines building and CS:GO coming to a close, it’s quite possible for the BLAST Paris Major to make a play for the most watched Major of all time.

All eyes will be on CS:GO’s peak player count in the coming fortnight, with the game looking to surpass the two million count sometime before the conclusion of the French Major on May 20. It’s still got a ways to go to break the all-time concurrent record set by PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds at over 3.2 million players.