A Valve employee responded to fans on Reddit.

After KQLY's Hovik Tovmassian gained access to a limited Counter-Strike 2 test, one Reddit user concluded that Valve had invited all players who played the major. An employee of the company responded to this message and explained in more detail about the invites.

Almost all professionals got access to Counter-Strike 2

An employee of Valve reported that all Major participants received access to Counter-Strike 2. But these are all professionals to whom Valve issued an invitation. In addition, players from Valve's regional rating, which they introduced at the end of last year, also got access to the test of the new game.

The HLTV.org portal helped this company, and with its help, Valve issued invitations. If a professional's profile on HLTV is linked to Steam, it is guaranteed access to the test.

However, of course, only some things went smoothly, and, for example, Spencer Hiko Martyn did not get access to the test, as he reported on Twitter. But after a couple of hours, the player still received CS2. Therefore, professional players who have not yet received access to the limited test should inform Valve about this and link their accounts to HLTV.

Related: KQLY gained access to Counter-Strike 2 on a VAC-banned account

What about ordinary players?

A Valve employee spoke about all players except casual players, and we still need exact information on how casual players get access. Primary selection criteria: time spent on Valve's official servers, trust factor, and Steam account status. Also, Valve specified that time in the game after the announcement of Counter-Strike 2 is not counted.

However, there were already confirmations that these criteria did not correspond to reality. For example, an account with three minutes in CS:GO accessed CS2. It seems that access to CS2 often random.