shroud returns to CSGO and regrets it due to bad matchmaking

Popular streamer Michael “shroud” Grzesiek returned to his old stomping grounds of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. And he didn’t particularly enjoy the experience.

The streamer put together a squad of five players for a matchmaking session. As per usual, shroud talked up the core CSGO game. But according to shroud, the overall CSGO experience remains an absolute disaster zone.

During a rant on Twitch, shroud discussed the state of CSGO matchmaking and he had nothing positive to say on the matter. He criticized a number of factors, despite remaining generally bullish on the actual gameplay of CSGO.

“Honestly, the game is great. It’s just pisses me off how s—– matchmaking is. That’s the only thing. Even though the game is ancient as f—, if it was just quite simply as easy to press play and have the real experience of Counter-Strike, I’d be all for it. But it’s f—— awful and it has been for however long now,” shroud said.

shroud blasts CSGO matchmaking, still enjoys the game

shroud’s take is far from being unique. Very few people have publicly criticized the CSGO gameplay experience, with its gunplay and great depth remaining almost peerless 10 years into its existence. The problem is everything else that comes with it.

shroud has made his frustrations known each time he returns to CSGO. Though he’s a full-time variety streamer at this point, the former CSGO pro returns to CSGO once every few months. Each time, he leaves again in a huff. 

shroud is far from being alone in his criticism of CSGO. The game has several measurable problems at the moment that need fixing. The ranked matchmaking system of CSGO is utterly broken in North America, with over 50% of players crammed into silver ranking. Cheating remains an enormous problem, as does rampant racism and misogyny.

And those are just the problems that Valve could reasonably fix. This doesn’t speak to how the game’s performance is worsening on the dated Source engine and how skin trading has a significant black market element that the developer has to concern itself with.

Until Valve actually sorts things out, don’t expect shroud to stick around in CSGO for any length of time.