Looking Back: The History of Counter-Strike
Counter-Strike outlasted many franchises and proved why they are one of the best game series in the FPS genre and a leader in the eSports industry.
Looking Back: The History of Counter-Strike
While CSGO rose as one of the biggest games in the gaming industry today, it is easy to say that it has come a long way to success. Somehow, the game found itself as one of the most popular eSports up to date. CSGO’s classic feel and easy approach proves that.
For starters, Counter-Strike is a first-person shooter game with two factions - the terrorist team or the counter-terrorist team. Each team has their own goals in winning over the other faction. All players have a pistol and knife equipped to start the game and can come up with better weapons in the long run.
Depending on the type of map used, Counter-Strike has three objectives for each faction aside from taking out all players from the opposing team. First is bomb defusal, where terrorists must plant a bomb on a set spot and prevent counter-terrorists from defusing it. The CTs must either defuse, or run out the time with no bomb blowing up.
Hostage rescue is another objective for both teams. The counter-terrorist must rescue a set group of hostages held by the terrorists to win. Terrorists can win the round if they take out all of the opposing team or if the time runs out with no hostage rescued.
The last objective available in the game is assassination, which is one of the most unique setups. One of the counter-terrorists will play as a VIP and the rest of the team must escort him to a set spot in the map. The Terrorists have to take out the VIP or at least run the time out while preventing him from reaching the safe spot.
When a player is killed, they become spectators until a round is over and cannot change their names until their next spawn. Text and voice chat is also disabled for the meantime to prevent them from helping out their active teammates.
It was not long until the franchise grew into one of the best games in the world. With free CSGO skins, more players came into play and it sparked the popularity of the game as the FPS king.
Early History of Counter-Strike
Counter-Strike began as a mod for Half-Life’s game engine. The mod was created by Minh ‘Gooseman’ Le and Jess Cliffe in 1999 before the two were hired by Valve to put the game into work. Counter-Strike was then released in 2000 and more updates and ports have been released ever since.
Le just began his last semester at college and wanted to work on game development to get more job prospects. He worked on the Quake engine at first before looking into GoldSrc. It took him about a month before he completed his first beta for Counter-Strike.
Cliffe then went on to help Le on his project and managed the game’s website and community while releasing many betas to get feedback. The interest in the game drew many players into the website and allowed the developers to gain revenue on the project.
Upon the release of Beta 5, Le and Cliffe were approached by Valve and offered them a job at the company with the game. Valve then released the first non-Beta version of the game in September 2000 and worked on the rest of the game’s versions.
Counter-Strike is a mod, and it has its own community of script developers and mod creators. Certain mods added bots and even added design for monsters and operating militaries from other countries.
There were certain mods that affected the game. The Gun Game, for example, gave players a pistol to start with and must score kills to get better weapons. The Zombie mod puts one team as zombies and must spread the infection by taking out the other faction. There are also superhero mods which mix the game with an experience system to put levels in play.
Condition Zero
Counter-Strike was followed up by Turtle Rock Studios’ Condition Zero to run on the same engine. It introduced a single-player mode with a full campaign and bonus levels. The game received mixed reviews compared to the first version.
This version was more of an overhaul for Counter-Strike with high-quality models and improved graphics. CZ was the first to introduce alpha blending which allowed realistic footage and weather effects.
Condition Zero also added more weapons into the game, as well as explosive gear like Molotov cocktails, tear gas bombs, M60 machine-gun, and M72 LAW rocket. With the use of Steam, CZ also took out the risks of cheating with constant code updates.
Counter-Strike Source
Source was released in November 2004 as a follow up to Condition Zero. The sequel started out as a beta for Valve Cyber Cafe Program members in August 2004. It was soon released to those who bought CZ as well.
The game was later released with Half-Life 2 bundles and some ATI Radeon video cards. Source was met with a lot of positive reviews from critics. The game was much more detailed and it featured more polygons per model with bump mapping and other graphical enhancements compared to the original.
Counter-Strike Source was also the first game released by Valve to run on the Source engine, which was followed by many of the company’s games in the future.
Launch and Success of CSGO
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive was then released in August 2012 by Valve and Hidden Path Entertainment. CSGO proved to be the biggest hit among all of the games in the series, and it delivered many changes to the franchise.
CSGO has nine main game modes that are loved by many fans all over the world. This led to the growth of the CSGO community and soon led to its rise as one of the best games in the eSports industry along with Valve’s Dota 2.
The game modes are as follows:
- Competitive - this mode puts players in a 45-minute match that is slated as free-for-all gameplay and works like a team deathmatch.
- Casual and deathmatch - these modes are less serious than the competitive mode and do not register friendly fire or collision with teammates and are useful as practice rounds.
- Arms Race - this is similar to the ‘Gun Game’ mode as players can only upgrade their weapons by killing enemies.
- Demolition - this works with players planting and defusing bombs and getting gun upgrades if they killed an enemy in the previous round.
- Wingman - this is a two-on-two bomb defusal mode with just 15 rounds to play.
- Flying Scoutsman - this is a mode where all players are equipped with only a SSG 08 and knife as they fight in low-gravity.
- Weapons Course - this is an offline practice mode designed to help players work on their use of guns and grenades.
- Danger Zone - it follows a battle-royale mode where players are set for 16 to 18 rounds with just knives and has to scour the map for weapons, ammunition and money.
Over time, CSGO saw many strategies for competitive play as well. It wasn’t long until Valve released an update in 2013 which introduced skins and stickers for weapons and equipment. This led to more players joining the fray, and as more operations came out, free CSGO skins became a regular part of the game and changed the landscape of FPS games.
CSGO and eSports
CSGO’s fan base remains stronger than ever despite the pandemic that held back most of the game’s Majors, which are the biggest tournaments for the game. The release of CSGO proved to be the stepping stone for the next level of eSports gaming. This also showed how the game has changed the standards for the competitive gaming industry.
Valve has done well in giving out to their fans, and CSGO’S prominence as the leading game in the FPS genre proves their effort in doing so. Counter-Strike has come a long way in delivering the hype of the shooter game, and CSGO’s success says it all.
With Valve taking the lead on most Major tournaments in CSGO, millions of players and fans have enjoyed the game’s biggest events. From European teams up to the North American squads, CSGO has been a relevant factor in eSports, and no other game is yet to replace it.
The likes of Call of Duty, Medal of Honor, Fortnite, andPlayerUnknown’s BattleGrounds have all tried to dethrone CSGO from its place as the eSports shooter king. However, the Valve FPS game remains at the top and has grown better over the years.
Sure, Riot Games’ Valorant is drawing many CSGO players away from the game. This does not mean that it is a tight competition. So far, CSGO has still kept the lead and Valorant poses no threat at all.
CSGO’s reputation for years has proved Valve’s impressive way of meeting the demands of their audience, and so the game continues to thrive. With more tournaments coming up for CSGO in 2021, success is sure to follow for the franchise’s long history.
For more CSGO updates, visit Gamdom.com
Words: Paul Daniel Flores
