Counter-Strike celebrates 25 years and fans anticipate new updates
Counter-Strike reached the 25-year milestone and celebrated with a post on X (formerly Twitter). The Chinese CS publisher also celebrated the anniversary on X. Meanwhile, Gabe Follower posted on YouTube about why a major CS2 update will be available soon.
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Counter-Strike instantly gained traction among gamers since it launched on Windows in 1999 and it remains popular to date. The prospective updates will cover a new font for the Counter-Strike comic, new maps, and other in-game items.
Counter-Strike marks 25th anniversary
The official Counter-Strike X account celebrated the game’s 25th anniversary with a short and simple post. Counter-Strike was initially a mod for Half-Life, developed by university students Minh Le and Jess Cliffe. Le, who had previously created mods for Quake, seized the opportunity when Valve announced the release of the Half-Life SDK, even starting work on character models before the SDK went public.
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Minh Le handled the majority of the programming. He drew inspiration from games like Rainbow Six and Spec Ops to create Counter-Strike gameplay. Le brought on his friend Jess Cliffe to manage the growing community and serve as a point of contact for fans who contributed to the game’s level design.
After publishing five beta versions in 1999, Valve took notice and struck a deal to acquire the Counter-Strike IP. The gaming company hired Le and Cliffe to continue developing the game. Le would go on to work on Counter-Strike 1.0, released in November 2000, and immediately began conceptualizing an ambitious sequel, Counter-Strike 2.0, for the same year.
CS2 players may get new hairstyles and pets
Valve creator Gabe Follower has shown a new data mine with cosmetic options. It includes key chains, pets, and customization options for operators, such as new hairstyles and heads. The data mine has six key chains: AK47, banana, bloodhound, grenade, plasma ball, and sugar skull. The keychains are expected to move independently of the weapon they are attached to. The data mine also suggests that new comics, maps, and animations may be in the works.
Suspicious chicken animations suggest pets could be introduced as a new cosmetic item. It’s unclear if they would follow players or exist solely for aesthetic purposes. The data mine also uncovered several new maps that were being developed. These maps are Thera (Greek village), Memento (Italian coastal village), Assembly (aircraft hangar), Pool Day (gym pool), and Mills (Dutch countryside with windmills). In addition, a new font for upcoming comics and new procedural speech and mouth animations were also discovered.
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Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) is a massive success for the American video game developer Valve Software. In 2023 alone, the game generated $1 billion in revenue from loot boxes, a 10 fold increase from the $100 million spent on loot boxes in March last year.
Cryptopolitan reporting by Randa Moses
