Neil Hughes
The creator of the competitive first-person shooter, Valve, formally announced the game on Friday, revealing that the title will come to its Steam digital distribution service next year. Steam became available on the Mac last year, bringing with it hit titles like Team Fortress 2 and Portal.
In addition to Mac OS X, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive will also be available on Steam on the PC, and via the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade. The new Counter-Strike will feature new maps, characters and weapons, as well as updated versions of original levels like "de_dust."
In addition, Global Offensive is set to introduce new gameplay modes, matchmaking, leaderboards and more. The first Counter-Strike launched as a beta modification of the Half-Life game engine in August of 1999.
"Counter-Strike took the gaming industry by surprise when the unlikely MOD became the most played online PC action game in the world almost immediately after its release in August 1999," said Doug Lombardi, vice president of marketing at Valve.
"For the past 12 years, it has continued to be one of the most-played games in the world, headline competitive gaming tournaments and selling over 25 million units worldwide across the franchise. CS: GO promises to expand on CS' award-winning gameplay and deliver it to gamers on the PC as well as the next-gen consoles and the Mac."
The new Counter-Strike is being developed by Valve in cooperation with Seattle-based Hidden Path entertainment. It will be playable at this year's PAX Prime Expo, along with the Eurogamer Expo 2011.
While waiting for Global Offensive to launch in early 2012, gamers on the Mac can get their Counter-Strike fix right now with Counter-Strike: Source, available on Steam for $19.99. The online team-based game launched in 2004 running on the Source engine that powers other Valve titles like Half-Life 2.
Andrew O'Hara
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31 Comments
For those not counting, this will be the fifth Source game to be announced, developed, and released since the release of Half-Life 2: Episode 2 and the announcement of Episode 3.
The five are Left 4 Dead, Left 4 Dead 2, Portal 2, Dota 2, and now Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.
I fully support what Valve wants to develop, they make great games, but they really need to just admit that Episode 3 has been canned and stop leading the community on.
Matchmaking = fail These guys forgot that the game lived so many years cause the support of a lot of clans around the world besides the hardcore gamer + the leagues.
How are they supposed to play together using matchmaking??
I am glad to hear they are coming back but I am sorry they are following activation/ea steps..<82ndAB>FrOg my name for CoD4 & CoD5 /the82ndab.net our website
Mac OS X needs more graphic drivers!
And matchmaking has always been a part of PC and console games as of late... It's just PC users will get the server browser which valve always has so clans will have no problem. I'm looking forward to this and Dota 2!
More glorification of war and death. DIsgusting
Mac OS X needs more graphic drivers!
And matchmaking has always been a part of PC and console games as of late... It's just PC users will get the server browser which valve always has so clans will have no problem. I'm looking forward to this and Dota 2!
Sorry to not share your view, been playing long enough to point out why is bad. It came with Modern Warfare 2 cause that game was a port from the gaming consoles to pc. You don't even need to be in a clan to suffer from matchmaking.
I have almost 10 years playing FPS on Mac with game titles like Soldier of Fortune, Ghost Recon Desert Siege, Raven Shield when we used to hang in Game Ranger. And got used to play with people from different countries like Australia, NZ, UK, Germany, Latin America, USA & Canada. One flaw matchmaking has is that almost make impossible or too troublesome to play with your friends since the matchmaking will force you most of the times to play on a server where you can get a good ping.
When I had MW2 I used to be forced to join a server in latin america and nobody I know. It is like trying to play with your buddies in World of Tanks unless you spend a good amount of bucks on it.
Hopefully will have a server list that "works" since that is another problem with ranked or unranked servers but time will tell.
Some of you won't consider matchmaking a problem, you are lone wolfs. But when you get used to play with a team for fun or in leagues like I got used... it matters. My clan has more than a hundred members active and we are just watching how the old days of good games are gone. One of our last hopes sit with Red Orchestra.