Can you play CS:GO online in 2025?

When Counter-Strike 2 was released in September 2023, Valve took the unprecedented step of having it replace CS:GO entirely. This was a controversial move made to not split the community between the two games. On paper, it seems that you can’t play CS:GO online in 2025. The truth is, it isn’t that black and white. Unlike CS 1.6 and CS: Source, the process of playing CS:GO in 2025 isn’t just loading it up and hitting Play. Here’s how to play online CS:GO matches in the modern era.

How to download CS:GO in 2025

While you may not see it in your Steam library, it’s actually pretty easy to download CS:GO in 2025. You need to right-click on Counter-Strike 2 on Steam and click Properties, before heading to the Betas tab. Once there, click the Beta Participation dropdown menu and select “csgo_legacy – Legacy Version of CS:GO.”

This will then download CS:GO to your PC, the last version of the game before Valve removed it. Once this CS:GO download has completed, launch CS2. You’ll be presented with a few options – make sure to select “Play Legacy Version of CS:GO” and the game should launch.

How to play CS:GO online in 2025

So you can download CS:GO in 2025, but can you play it? Sadly, the online matchmaking servers for the game are completely gone, and FACEIT no longer supports it, either. This means your best chance to play CS:GO in 2025 is facing off against bots. It’s not ideal, but it’s the easiest way to play, and it’s still an excellent reminder of how great CS:GO was once upon a time.

However, there is still some hope if you want to play CS:GO online in 2025. While matchmaking is disabled, Valve did not remove the ability to host CS:GO community servers. You know what this means: other players can host servers and make them public for others to join using custom maps and game modes.

It should be noted that this feature is no longer supported in the in-game Community Server Browser, so you will need to visit third-party sites to play CS:GO community servers online in 2025. In my own experience, I’ve found that the GameTracker CS:GO servers offer the best quality of matches. It’s harder to find classic 5v5 gameplay, but it’s a lot better than nothing. Once you find a server you want to join, copy the IP into your CS:GO console using the connect command and hit enter.

So, yes, you can play CS:GO online in 2025, but it may not be exactly as you remember it. However, there’s one more thing. You can use a hosting service called PopFlash to play 5v5 CS:GO matches online too, although this is a premium third-party service, so it doesn’t come free. The real catch here is that you need 10 players who also want to play CS:GO online for a full match.

CS:GO player count: Is CS:GO still active?

Because Steam doesn’t tell the exact number of players active in the old CS:GO branch, it’s impossible to say exactly how active the game is in 2025. However, from anecdotal experience, I can tell you this: I’ve never struggled to find an active CS:GO community server online. So, yes, considering how hard Valve has made it to play CS:GO online in 2025, I’d say it’s still pretty active.