Playing CS:GO After CS2 Release

If your hardware or OS does not support CS2, or you want more performance and custom gamemodes, here's how you can play CS:GO again.

Preface

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive has been rebranded and re-released as Counter-Strike 2, and instead of being given its own store page, the game is now tucked away as a CS2 beta branch.

This is how you can choose it and play CS:GO again.

Switching to CS:GO

1. In your Library, hover over Counter-Strike 2
   
   
   
   
2. Right-click and select Properties
   
   
   
   
   
   
3. Navigate to Betas on the left menu bar
   
   
   
   
4. Under the Beta Participation drop-down menu, from the list, pick csgo_legacy - Legacy Version of CS:GO
   
   
   
   
5. Wait for the update to finish
   
   
   
   
6. Finally, from the list of launch options, pick Play Legacy Version of CS:GO
   
   
   
   
7. Hit play!
   
   

What Currently Works

Status

Official matchmaking no longer works.

Community servers do work, but the server browser gets no servers from the master list to display in the "Internet" tab. To overcome this, use the other tabs, and in order to discover new servers, use server tracking websites such as Game-State[www.game-state.com].

Workshop maps still work.

What to expect

CS:GO support is ending on January 1, 2024. Read the help article for more information.

The gist of it is this:

After January 1, 2024 the game will still be available, but certain functionality that relies on compatibility with the Game Coordinator (e.g., access to inventory) may degrade and/or fail.

Considering CS:GO is to be left unmaintained, any Steam components of the game may eventually become outdated enough that the game stops working entirely.

[lightwo]

Looks like the menu option is only there for Windows and macOS. Sorry for not catching that earlier, I don't play this game any more.

If you use Linux, you need to do this:

"/path/to/SteamLinuxRuntime/run-in-scout-on-soldier" -- "/path/to/Counter-Strike Global Offensive/csgo.sh" -steam

Also note that SLR 1.0 (Scout) is no longer available to select amongst compatibility tools, so there's no point trying to do it with Steam launch arguments anyway.

[g*y r*tard]

weirdly, theres no launch option menu for me, any help?

[ุ]

too bad they shut down the servers

[lightwo]

Does it not work if you do it normally? I suggest trying this:

1. Open this URL: steam://open/console
2. In the Console tab, enter "workshop_download_item <appid> <PublishedFileId>"
- <appid> corresponds to the game's App ID (730)
- <PublishedFileId> corresponds to the ID you can find in the URL of a Workshop item

[Trix(cs2=TRASH)]

How can we Get old csgo workshop maps

[Gherbetto]

I updated the screenshot to the current options, and also highlighted in the guide what option to select.

[lightwo]

Use csgo_legacy.

[Darkopolypse98]

uh... the dropdown menu in betas, doesnt show that. it shows 1.37.7.4, rkv test, plx test, 1.39.9.2,1.39.9.2-a, 1.39.9.4, 1.39.9.5, csgo_legacy, and demo viewer for pre 2013/1/9 demos. yours is the only one which doesnt show up. sooooo....

[lightwo]

CS2 still uses "Counter-Strike Global Offensive" as the install directory, so that's where you'll find it.

[Michi]

What is the location csgo_legacy is saved to?