To this day, Counter-Strike is the biggest FPS esports-title in the world. Every day a lot of new players are getting into the game. Here is everything you need to know to get started.
Being the most successful tactical shooter of all time, CS:GO’s playerbase still grows every day. A lot has changed in its eight years of existence, so here is how to get started quickly.
How to install Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
As with every game, you first have to get CS:GO on your computer. Since the game is developed and published by Valve, you have to install their client Steam first. After downloading, you can create a new account for free.
Once you are at that point, go to the Steam shop and search for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. The game is free to play unless you want an account with prime status, which costs $14.99.
This only helps you play with other prime members and to get into lobbies with a higher trust factor. The higher your trust factor, the less likely you will encounter cheaters in your matches. To get started, a free account is enough though.
The best way to start
Once you have installed the game, you can start it from the symbol on your desktop or directly from your steam library. Keep in mind that the ingame music is turned to max volume when you boot up the game for the first time, so maybe lower your volume beforehand.
Unfortunately, CS:GO not well-known for its welcoming community, especially at the lower ranks. So to get oriented, don’t immediately hop into an online match, but try to get used to the feeling of the movement and guns in the training course.
The training course is basícally CS:GO’s tutorial. At the end of it, there is a trial that stops your time and allows you to improve as often as you want to. You can enter the training course by clicking on the play button in the top left of your screen and then selecting it from the dropdown menu right next to it.
Ready for online matches?
Once you got the hang on the basic gameplay and feel comfortable with the way the guns handle in CS:GO, you can either start with a bot match to see how the classic defuse gamemode works or you jump into deathmatch or one of the other casual gamemodes.
In those you will play against real players, but there are no ranks or other forms of matchmaking involved. Because of that, you will likely encounter some players that also just started out, but there might be some experienced ones. Just try your best and try to improve and don’t focus on your score too much.
To keep people with new accounts from messing up the ranked experience, everyone with a new non-prime account has to reach level 2 before playing the main competitive mode called Matchmaking. You can gain experience points for leveling up by playing the aforementioned online gamemodes.
Matchmaking and the learning curve
Once you have gained access to official matchmaking, the real CS:GO experience starts. For the first ten matches you will not have a rank. The game needs to calibrate your perfomance and will give you a rank based on that.
You will have to learn a lot about the deeper mechanics of the game, like the economy (yup, you need to buy your guns!) or recoil control.
The most beatiful thing about Counter-Strike is, that there is always room to improve. The most important thing you need to do is actually try to learn from every match, let other people help you out or look for more tutorials online.
If you keep improving, you will be able to climb the 18 ranks from Silver 1. Maybe you will be part of the Global Elite some day?
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Image Credit: Valve