How to tell if you got invited to the CS2 beta test

You may have gotten invited to the CS2 beta without knowing it, so here’s how to tell.

Forget blue gems and Kato crafts, the new hotness in CSGO is beta access. More valuable than any skin, access to the beta is extremely exclusive and locked to individual accounts. Participation isn’t mandatory, and there’s a good chance that there are many accounts that have been invited to the party but failed to show up. Here’s how to tell if you made it into the limited beta test for CS2. 

The biggest indicator will appear once you open CSGO for the first time after being invited. The game will have a giant popup window showing that you were invited to play. Players can then accept, which will close CSGO and begin downloading the Source 2 client. After the download is complete, simply open up the game and start playing. The invite should look something like this.

If you accidentally skipped over the popup, don’t worry. You should still get a notification on the main menu that you can open at any time to start playing the beta. Some players have reported losing access to the beta after playing it a couple of times, so be sure to download it as soon as you can.

Tips for how to get into the CS2 beta

Valve itself has already given one crucial tip for how to get into the CS2 beta. 

In the CS2 limited beta test reveal, Valve stated that the beta testing pool was pulled from players who have historically played on Valve servers. That means that grinders who only played on FACEIT’s 128-tick matchmaking were generally excluded from the test.

With that in mind, playing on Valve servers is really the only confirmed way to boost your chances of access. Aside from that, there’s no way to know for sure how Valve picks which players get into the CS2 beta. It would make sense for the company to prioritize accounts in good standing, so having an older account with few reports and zero VAC bans will probably help. Outside of playing regularly on Valve servers, the only other trick is to hope and pray for access.