CSGO hits 1 million player count again as new operation looms

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive hit one million concurrent players for the first time since hitting its all-time peak over seven months ago. 

On November 15, CSGO once again passed the million player mark and logged a total of 1,011,026 players online at once. Early numbers suggested that Valve’s competitive shooter had taken a hit during the closed beta for Valorant, Riot Game’s’ entry into the first-person shooter space, but CSGO has averaged over 900,000 players in-game during peak times of the day. While CSGO hasn’t come close to breaking its record set earlier this year, the game has continued to perform well. CSGO hit the million mark despite much of its community expecting the game’s tenth operation earlier in the week.

Even without new CSGO operation, its player base is still going strong

While its players didn’t get the big new operation and content drop they wanted, CSGO still has some time left before players’ disappointment kicks in. Operation Shattered Web launched on November 18, 2019, leaving Valve some breathing room to drop a content patch for CSGO that almost every player is convinced is coming. While there hasn’t been any official word from Valve regarding another new operation release for CSGO, it has done work behind the scenes to make sure that if it releases one, CSGO will be ready. Over the past year, code has been found in patches for Dota 2, Artifact, and CSGO itself that hint at both graphical improvements and performance increases to the world’s top competitive shooter.

But players expect more than that. Shattered Web included exclusive maps inside of an endless battlepass system. Users could earn drops in a number of ways, with Valve including a weekly quest system and the ability for players to buy their way up the pass. For some, it was worth it to pour money into the operation just for the chance at some of the ultra-rare skin drops.

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Two of the skin collections are assumed to have been limited-time drops, and that has caused CSGO’s weapon skin market to explode, with several of the operation’s skins selling for more than the fabled AWP | Dragon Lore. The AWP | Gungnir is one of those, often netting its owners more than $3,000 on the third-party market.

While the Agent models caused some visibility issues early on, additions to CSGO’s engine and adjustments to the models have made them commonplace in both tournaments and in the game’s matchmaking service. If anything, CSGO seems to be gaining steam heading into the usually quiet Christmas season as players hone their skills in anticipation of more content for a game that celebrated just celebrated its 20th anniversary of the Counter-Strike 1.0.