Every day, hundreds of thousands of users play Counter-Strike, and professional tournaments are held worldwide. Many have played the game, but few have thought about where it all began and the journey CS has taken to get to where it is today. In this article, we will discuss the amateur modification that turned into one of the most famous game series in the world — Counter-Strike.
The Birth
The story of the first prototype of CS began in the late 90s with the release of the first part of Quake. An ordinary player and aspiring programmer, Minh Le, wanted to try his hand at modding. Soon, a mod called Navy Seals emerged. It turned the grim Quake into a more grounded shooter where a SWAT team faced off against simple terrorists rather than hordes of the undead.
With the release of the second part of Quake, Minh Le, as part of a small team called A Team, released the modification Action Quake 2, which used the same concept of SWAT versus terrorists. This mod laid the groundwork for the future Counter-Strike.
Mod for Half-Life and Counter-Strike 1.0
In 1999, A Team disbanded, and Minh Le, along with Jess Cliffe, began working on a new modification using the popular Half-Life engine. This is when the first working prototype of Counter-Strike appeared. Although it was far from the final version, the fundamental elements such as team vs. team gameplay and the emphasis on teamwork were already visible.
Seeing the popularity of their creation, Minh Le and Jess Cliffe continued to refine it. About seven major updates were released for the mod, adding weapons, bunny hopping, changes to the interface, movement system, aiming, and more. Valve noticed the success of these talented young developers and soon took them under its wing.
In the early 2000s, under Valve's leadership, Counter-Strike 1.0 was released. Despite this, the beta servers remained operational for another three years. Thanks to fans, even now, you can try the earliest versions of CS.
Counter-Strike 1.6
After a short time and a few more major updates, the game finally reached the final version, known as 1.6, which is familiar to most players around the world. The seemingly simple concept actually had a very deep gameplay with many important details.
Players were still divided into two teams — SWAT and terrorists. Each side had its unique weapons. Terrorists had the AK-47, while the SWAT team had the M4. The only way to obtain the enemy's weapon was to take it from their corpse.
The game had three modes: hostage rescue, bomb planting, and VIP assassination. These actions took place on 25 different maps, most of which were well-balanced. Despite this, players selected only a few of them for constant battles.
One of the main features of the game was its economy. Money was spent on purchasing equipment and weapons. Players received different amounts of money for each won or lost round. Proper allocation of funds when buying equipment significantly impacted not only tactics but the course of the entire match.
Soon, Counter-Strike 1.6 surpassed games like Quake 3 Arena and Unreal Tournament. At one point, CS became the most popular esports discipline in the world. In the early 2000s, every gamer was familiar with CS 1.6, and for some, it became a true symbol of their childhood. Even today, hundreds of thousands of players around the world continue to play CS 1.6.
Counter-Strike: Condition Zero
In March 2004, the long-suffering Counter-Strike: Condition Zero was released. The development of the game began back in 2000 by Rogue Entertainment. A year later, due to financial problems, the studio closed, and the development of Condition Zero was transferred to Gearbox Software. They completely overhauled the game: adding support for new technologies and a single-player campaign. Despite this, the studio did not meet deadlines, and after another delay, the development was handed over to Ritual Entertainment.
Condition Zero underwent a complete overhaul once again. The main focus was on a campaign of 20 unrelated missions where the player controlled different SWAT units. The nearly finished game was cancelled due to poor feedback from beta testers.
The next team assigned to finish CS:CZ was Turtle Rock Studios. They reinstated the work done by Gearbox Software, completed the artificial intelligence, and fixed all the errors of the previous version. After four long years, Condition Zero finally reached its release.
Gamers were disappointed. All that Counter-Strike: Condition Zero could offer was a game with bots and a single-player campaign. The campaign included 18 missions in various parts of the world with a small storyline.
Counter-Strike: Source
In October of the same 2004, another version of Counter-Strike with the suffix Source was released. The game was developed by the same people who made the original. The main idea in development was to simply port the game to a new engine without significant changes. The developers succeeded in this. Minor bugs and shortcomings of the original version were fixed, some errors in the network code were corrected, and the quality of graphics and effects was improved. Despite all the improvements, Counter-Strike: Source was rejected by the players.
Fans of CS 1.6 refused to recognise CS:S. Some didn’t like the new shooting physics, others the movement system, and some the new maps. The developers did not expect such a negative reaction from the community.
Counter-Strike Online
In an attempt to conquer the Asian market, Counter-Strike Online was released in 2008 with a focus on zombie themes. The game was distributed on a free-to-play model. Overall, the game did not have significant differences from the original. However, it did feature an in-game store with a lot of junk that could be purchased for real money. Later, the game appeared on Steam and became available worldwide.
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
Rumours about a new version of Counter-Strike appeared in 2011. In August of the same year, the official announcement of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive took place. The trailer stated that the developers were working to carefully transfer the features of the classic 1.6 version into a new look with improved graphics, network code, online leaderboards, rankings, and more.
The fact that the best esports players in the world were involved in the development of the new version only fueled the community’s interest. Valve made it clear that it was ready to conquer the esports world again. The long-awaited release took place in August 2012.
The game featured a competitive mode with a ranking system, classic unranked matchmaking, and many other modes. At launch, the game had 16 maps available, including both new and reworked old ones. There were also new types of weapons: the Zeus x27 taser, Molotov cocktail, and others.
Particular attention was given to cases and weapon skins, which were immediately embraced by the community. An entire economy was built around them, and Valve began earning millions of dollars a year. Various skin collectors emerged, willing to pay thousands of dollars for rare items. Esports players were no different—everyone wanted an inventory with the best skins.
CS:GO was liked by both old and new players. The game was constantly updated, and its audience grew daily. Year after year, numerous professional tournaments with huge prize pools were held for CS:GO, and the best esports players became true idols for young gamers. The series entered its best times.
Counter-Strike 2
In the spring of 2023, the first trailers for Counter-Strike 2 were presented to the world. The main focus was on the change of the game engine to Source 2. The graphics became slightly better, but the requirements for PCs increased. Gamers massively downgraded the game's rating on Steam because their FPS (frames per second) became very low in CS2. Indeed, CS2 is poorly optimised but is quite playable even on an average computer.
The smoke effects from smoke grenades were also reworked. Now, smoke reacts to light, grenade explosions, and bullet impacts. Player shadows were also improved. In CS2, you can spot an opponent long before they come around a corner.
The main ranked mode became Premier, which literally mirrors the professional scene. Users first go through the map ban stage, followed by the selection of the side to play on. The familiar ranks were moved to casual matchmaking, and now the rank is assigned for each map separately.
Upon release, CS2 had a huge number of problems that still need to be fixed by the developers, but despite this, it is already being widely played. Thanks to the new game engine, many improvements, changes, and innovations are expected in the future.
This is how Counter-Strike transformed from an amateur modification into a global phenomenon. No one could have imagined that a game created by the efforts of two people would become one of the main symbols of the video game industry.
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