Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

"The next chapter in one of the greatest first-person multiplayer shooter franchises the PC has to offer, now with added console support."

- Computer and Video Games Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) is a first-person shooter video game which is a part of the Counter-Strike series. It was announced to the public on August 12, 2011, and is developed by Valve Corporation and their partner, Hidden Path Entertainment. The game was later released on August 21, 2012 for the Playstation 3, Xbox 360, Microsoft Windows, and OS X as a downloadable title.

Development
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive started off as an Xbox 360 port of Counter-Strike: Source by Hidden Path Entertainment. Seeing this as an opportunity to expand the franchise, Valve turned it into an entirely new game.

Jess Cliffe confirmed the title "Global Offensive" on the official Steam forums on August 11, 2011,  while Valve later confirmed with its official announcement on August 12, 2011.

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive uses the latest version of the Source engine and is not built off of Counter-Strike: Source. After the success of the previous game, Valve wanted the newest game in the franchise to cater to both the casual and competitive community by including a matchmaking system as well as support for dedicated servers.

Valve announced the beta would begin in October, but after receiving feedback from professional players who had been invited to playtest earlier versions of the beta, Valve decided to delay the beta . After addressing the majority of the issues the closed beta started on November 30, 2011 to a pool of around 10,000 select players. After almost a year of the closed beta, Valve opened the beta up starting August 14, 2012 to anyone who had pre-ordered the game.

Continued support
Valve is known for providing unparalleled support and continuous updates for its titles, and Counter-Strike:Global Offensive is no exception. Since the beta ended, Hidden Path Entertainment have stopped its share of the development and Valve has taken over and provided countless updates to the game for everything from bug fixes and gameplay adjustments to new official content, and even added support for the Steam Workshop to allow custom content.

Some important updates include:
 * Carrying a hostage instead of leading NPCs.
 * Modifying how the C4 is planted and used.
 * Continuous tweaking of weapons and maps to balance gameplay.
 * Multiple weapon cases containing weapon skins, stickers to adorn the weapons, and packages.
 * Additional weapons including the M4A1-S, the USP-S, and the CZ75-Auto.
 * Operation Payback - Introduced on  and lasted until August 31, 2013. The first "Operation" introduced, adding new official and community created content.
 * Steam Trading Cards were added on May 15, 2013.
 * - Released on August 14th, 2013 bringing weapon skins, timed drops, containers, and keys to the game.
 * Operation Bravo - The second operation released on  and lasted until . Included new community created maps available for casual, competitive, and Deathmatch scenarios. It also included a operation specific weapon case and collection.
 * Cobble and Overpass were added on December 13, 2013.
 * - Added on December 18, 2013 introducing gift giving options, the first community created weapon case, and the ESports 2013 Winter Case to help support professional eSport tournaments.
 * Operation Phoenix - The third operation released on  and lasted until . The operation brought back 8 top voted community maps from the previous operations and released its own weapon case.
 * Operation Breakout - the fourth operation released on . The operation included 6 new community maps as well as its own weapon case. The operation also introduced the Operation Journal to record progress during the operation, and Operation Missions allowing the players to complete varying tasks to receive a special reward from one of three new weapon skin collections.

As of yet, the console versions have not been updated and are extremely different when compared to their Steam counterpart. It is currently unknown whether or not Valve has plans for updating these versions.

Development is ongoing, and updates can be tracked at Valve's Product Updates channel. A community grassroots effort to better document, organize, and track the resolutions of existing bugs and issues has been acknowledged by Valve and the unofficial CS:GO Bugs and Issue Tracker is maintained by the 64bitVPS Gaming Community .

Weapons
There are 8 new weapons in Global Offensive, and there are several changes to returning weapons, regarding the firepower, rate of fire, accuracy, and movement speed. Weapons in bold are new weapons that never appeared in a previous game. Weapons in italics are weapons that replace an old gun and its role. They retain the same basic attributes and are officially considered the "successor".

Pistols


Terrorists

 * Glock-18
 * P250 (replaces the P228)
 * Desert Eagle
 * Dual Berettas
 * Tec-9
 * CZ75 Auto



Counter-Terrorists

 * P2000 (replaces the USP)
 * USP-S
 * P250 (replaces the P228)
 * Desert Eagle
 * Dual Berettas
 * Five-SeveN
 * CZ75 Auto



Heavy


Terrorists

 * Nova (replaces the M3)
 * XM1014
 * Sawed-Off



Counter-Terrorists

 * Nova (replaces the M3)
 * XM1014
 * MAG-7



Submachine guns
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Terrorists

 * MAC-10
 * MP7 (replaces the MP5)
 * UMP-45
 * PP-Bizon
 * P90

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Counter-Terrorists

 * MP9 (replaces the TMP)
 * MP7 (replaces the MP5)
 * UMP-45
 * PP-Bizon
 * P90

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Rifles
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Terrorists

 * Galil AR (replaces the IDF Defender)
 * AK-47
 * SSG 08 (replaces the Schmidt Scout)
 * SG 553 (replaces the SG 552)
 * AWP
 * G3SG1

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Counter-Terrorists

 * FAMAS
 * M4A4 (replaces the M4A1)
 * M4A1-S
 * SSG 08 (replaces the Schmidt Scout)
 * AUG
 * AWP
 * SCAR-20 (replaces the SG 550)

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Machine guns

 * M249
 * Negev

Cut weapons

 * MP5

Grenades
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Terrorists

 * Molotov cocktail
 * Decoy grenade
 * HE grenade
 * Flashbang
 * Smoke grenade

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Counter-Terrorists
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 * Incendiary grenade
 * Decoy grenade
 * HE grenade
 * Flashbang
 * Smoke grenade

Equipment

 * Armor costs money in Competitive mode, while it is free in Casual mode.
 * The defusal kit is purchasable in Competitive mode. In Casual mode, every Counter-Terrorist will automatically be given the Defusal Kit.
 * A new piece of equipment - the Zeus x27 appears as a stun gun and provides a one time, one shot kill for $1,000.
 * In the March 21, 2013 update, the Rescue kit has been added to allow a Counter-Terrorist pick up a hostage within one second instead of four.
 * In the Arms Deal update, the USP-S and the M4A1-S have been added due to the requests of the community.
 * The C4 has been tweaked to maintain balance.
 * An alternative fire has been added for grenades. Players can now throw a grenade within a very short distance and these grenades can set off faster.
 * A new automatic pistol, the CZ75-Auto, has been added, replacing the P250 if equipped.
 * The scope mechanics of the AUG and SG 553 have been changed. Instead of zooming in the player's vision like the older games, the user of these weapons will have a magnified view by looking at the rear of the scope.

Maps
<p style="color:rgb(58,58,58);">At launch Global Offensive had a total of 16 official maps: 8 updated classic maps, and 8 brand new maps for the Arsenal game mode.

Bomb Defusal

 * Aztec
 * Dust
 * Dust 2
 * Cache (became official on July 1, 2014)
 * Cbble (released on December 18, 2013)
 * Inferno
 * Mirage (released on June 12, 2013)
 * Nuke
 * Overpass (released on December 18, 2013)
 * Train
 * Vertigo (released on October 1, 2012)

Hostage Rescue

 * Assault (released on February 7, 2013)
 * Italy
 * Militia (released on March 21, 2013)
 * Office

Arms Race

 * Baggage
 * Monastery (released on October 1, 2012)
 * Shoots

Demolition

 * Bank
 * Lake
 * Safehouse
 * Shorttrain
 * St. Marc
 * Sugarcane

Factions
<p style="color:rgb(58,58,58);">Global Offensive features a total of fourteen unique factions. The factions are a mix of old and new characters.

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Terrorists

 * Anarchist
 * Balkan
 * Elite Crew
 * Phoenix Connexion
 * Pirate
 * Professional
 * Separatist

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Counter-Terrorists

 * GIGN
 * GSG-9
 * IDF
 * FBI
 * SAS
 * SEAL Team 6
 * SWAT

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Cut Factions

 * Georgian Riot Police

Patches
<p style="color:rgb(58,58,58);"> Counter-Strike: Global Offensive will always update and patch any errors as soon as possible. The updates are automatically downloaded and installed as soon Steam is enabled.

Achievements
<p style="color:rgb(58,58,58);">Achievements are given for completing milestones or notable actions, such as getting 1,000 kills with a particular weapon, or getting four headshots in one round. The awards add up and give you medals which can be seen on the leaderboard during matches. You can also find a list in the achievements and stats menu. A list of all achievements and their requirements can be found here.

Miscellaneous

 * Classic modes: Competitive and Casual.
 * Players have soft collision (can walk through each other) in Casual mode while in Competitive mode, players have hard collision (are solid objects).
 * The money system has been reworked to better accommodate the weapon and equipment changes.
 * For example, In Casual mode, all money rewards are halved.
 * New modes: Arsenal: Demolition, Arsenal: Arms Race, and Deathmatch (Deathmatch is only accessible in the PC version)
 * Improved bullet penetration through some walls, materials, and objects when comparing to Counter-Strike: Source.
 * New factions and changes to classic ones.
 * Instead of having multiple Terrorist and Counter-Terrorist classes to choose from, each map has two opposing factions against other, similar to the Xbox port of Counter-Strike.
 * The radio commands for bots and players have been updated, each faction has its own voice actor, unlike previous Counter-Strike games where all factions had the same voice actor.
 * The hand models for Counter-Terrorists and Terrorists have been graphically updated and look different for each team and each faction (ex. SAS and Elite Crew factions have different hand models).
 * Matchmaking system based on ELO ranks and Skill groups.
 * Support for dedicated servers (PC and Mac only).
 * Leaderboards.
 * Maps such as Monastery, Vertigo, Assault, or Militia can only be accessed through the PC version of the game.
 * Model size as well as hitboxes slightly reduced when comparing to Counter-Strike: Source.
 * Cross-platform multiplayer between Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. PlayStation 3 was previously said to be included, but later dropped.
 * The console versions of the game run at native 720p resolution at a consistent 30fps.
 * PC and Xbox 360 versions are rendered in Direct3D, while the Mac OS X and Playstation 3 version is rendered in OpenGL.
 * The PlayStation 3 version supports the DualShock 3 controller, PlayStation Move or a USB keyboard/mouse, while the Xbox 360 version is limited to a controller.
 * The HUD, crosshair and buy menu VGUI has been updated.
 * When dead, players will have the ability to assume the role of a bot if no other players are in control.
 * Added support for ATI X1000-series GPU.

Trivia

 * Counter-Strike: Global Offensive was announced on August 12, 2011, 12 years (exactly 146 months or 4,444 days) after Counter-Strike was originally released as a modification (June 12, 1999).
 * Counter-Strike: Global Offensive did not arrive on the PAL version of PlayStation Store on the offical release date, causing fans of the region to react with anger. Sony apologised for the delay and promised to solve the problem as soon as possible but failed to provide an explanation.
 * Counter Strike: Global Offensive is the only Counter Strike game to be rated 18+ by PEGI.
 * In the CS:GO icon, a CT can be seen holding a SCAR-H, a weapon that isn't in the game.
 * Unlike the other games in the Counter Strike series, the color of the Terrorist team in CS:GO seems to be a darker yellow with a bit of orange mixed into it, instead of red.

Steam Store
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Official screenshots
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Concept art
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