win.gg
Win.gg Counter-Strike What is CSGO surfing? How this glitch turned into a mini-game

What is CSGO surfing? How this glitch turned into a mini-game

Author Icon
William Davis Published 08/07/2021

Surfing is a unique feature of the Source engine that lets players quickly gain speed when hugging steep angles. What started as a glitch has become the most popular custom game modes in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and other Source titles. Surfing has become an iconic CSGO custom game for its difficult, yet strangely calming challenge.

Surfing has its roots in the original Half-Life’s Goldsource engine. Since Half-Life served as the base game for the original Counter-Strike 1.6, surfing carried over to the multiplayer shooter.

After the glitch’s discovery around 2008, players began making custom surf maps in the Source map editor. Surf servers are still a common sight today in the CSGO lobby browser. There are currently over 1,900 surf maps available on the Steam workshop, though their quality ranges from throwaway test maps to fully-fledged gauntlets that stump even the most experienced CSGO surfers.

There are only a handful of spots in the CSGO active duty map pool suitable for surfing. The most famous example is on Overpass near monster, where CTs can briefly surf and gain speed for a peek. Clever players like Team Vitality’s Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut have taken advantage of the wall’s coincidentally surfable angle.

How to surf in CSGO

Before you cah on. If the wall is to your left, hold the A key into it. On the right, hold D. Many surf maps are symmetrical in nature, but you’ll needn air strafe and sequence like a pro, you first need to learn how to stick to the wall. After gaining some momentum, simply hug the wall and you should latc to be competent on both sides of the wall.

Control your vertical positioning by angling your mouse up and down. To build speed, start at the top of a surfable wall and slowly angle yourself downwards. At the end of walls, quickly ramp your character upwards to get some lift. Air-strafing is also a very important part of surfing in CSGO. To monitor your in-game velocity, type cl_showpos 1 in the console.

Hopping into a public surf server is intimidating, but you can practice surfing in a private lobby by downloading the maps yourself from the Steam workshop. CSGO surf maps for beginners include surf_colours and surf_classics. Once you’re a bit more comfortable, try out the gold standard of CSGO surf maps surf_utopia_v3.

William Davis
About William Davis

View full profile
Read Also
The Esports Nations Cup Has Been Postponed to November 2027 News
The Esports Nations Cup Has Been Postponed to November 2027 Ben Boland The 2026 Esports Nations Cup has been suspended until 2027. The Esports Foundation announced the delay on August 18, citing ongoing regional uncertainty. The inaugural competition was scheduled to take place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, comprising over 100 national teams and featuring 16 different games, including League of Legends. According to the Esports Foundation, this decision follows ongoing developments in the region and consultation with key stakeholders. Moving the event ...
MLBB is the most-watched game from the EWC, and it’s hard to see another game beating it Esports Betting
MLBB is the most-watched game from the EWC, and it’s hard to see another game beating it Michael Hassall The Esports World Cup 2026 has officially passed its midway point and viewership figures for the tournament have surpassed many expectations so far, as per Esports Charts. The viewership tracking site revealed new statistics for the event on Aug. 6, showcasing just how many games had set new records in viewership, including one name leading the way in views: Mobile Legends: Bang Bang. MLBB leads the viewership charts with the ...
CS2 at the EWC 2026 Preview: Odds, Details, Predictions and More Counter-Strike
CS2 at the EWC 2026 Preview: Odds, Details, Predictions and More Owen Harsono Top-tier Counter-Strike action returns at the Esports World Cup, as 32 of the best teams will take the trip to Paris to compete for millions of dollars. If you’re looking to watch the event, here’s everything you need to know and which teams to keep an eye on. The Esports World Cup is one of the largest CS2 events if we’re looking at prize pools, as $2,000,000 will be distributed ...
Opinion: Is Esports Tracing the Same Evolutionary Path As Traditional Sports? News
Opinion: Is Esports Tracing the Same Evolutionary Path As Traditional Sports? Cecilia Ciocchetti What happens when an industry compresses centuries of sporting evolution into less than a decade or two? Communities become global audiences overnight, rivalries spread through social media within minutes, and tournaments turn into entertainment products faster than ever before. And so what took traditional sports centuries to build has taken esports a fraction of that. From local communities to sold out arenas, and from informal matches to Olympic-style events, the ...
BLAST Bounty 2026 semi-final predictions: who’s making it to the grand final? Counter-Strike
BLAST Bounty 2026 semi-final predictions: who’s making it to the grand final? Owen Harsono The top four teams we’re seeing at the BLAST Bounty 2026 semi-finals are far from what anyone would expect before the tournament began, but here we are. We’re only three matches from crowning a winner, so let’s take a look at the best BLAST Bounty semi-final predictions for both upcoming matchups. Starting the semi-finals off is a banger of a series between FaZe Clan and Team Spirit, which is one ...
We Ranked The Top 5 Most Hated CS2 Maps Counter-Strike
We Ranked The Top 5 Most Hated CS2 Maps Owen Harsono If you’re a Counter-Strike player, you probably have that one map you always ban first in every Premier game — and you're not alone as almost everyone has one too. Below, we’ll take a look at the most hated maps in Counter-Strike history and explain why they are disliked by the community at large. Anubis is one of the newer releases in the Counter-Strike 2 map pool, but it has ...
The Top 10 Best Clutches in Counter-Strike History Ranked Counter-Strike
The Top 10 Best Clutches in Counter-Strike History Ranked Owen Harsono Pulling off an impossible clutch is one of the greatest hits of dopamine any Counter-Strike 2 player can ever feel. However, pulling them off at the highest level can be a little tricky since everyone is so coordinated. That’s exactly why mind-blowing clutches are remembered forever. Let’s take a trip down memory lane and look at the 10 best clutches in Counter-Strike history. We’re opening the list with former mousesports ...