Valve this week released Counter-Strike 2, the highly anticipated free upgrade for owners of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, but Mac owners were left in the lurch on launch day, with the upgrade breaking the game and seemingly no macOS version forthcoming.
The title's release on Wednesday forced a 26GB update for everyone with CS:GO, including Mac users, but after installation those on macOS soon discovered that the update essentially makes the game unplayable because Steam subsequently attempts to launch an executable file for Windows. Some users have had to employ a workaround to reverse the change and access CS:GO, but it's less than ideal.
Valve quietly removed the macOS symbol on Steam's Counter-Strike product page, while the only reference to this omission for Counter-Strike 2 appears in Valve's official FAQ. A question about Mac support is met with the response: "No. CS2 is not available for Mac at this time," but provides no additional information.
Regardless, Valve apparently failed to adequately warn Mac users, many of whom have racked up thousands of hours on CS:GO and spent hundreds of dollars on inventory purchases. One Mac gamer on Reddit wrote:
I have around 6,000 hours in CS:GO, about 500$ worth of inventory. Am I supposed to leave all that behind now? Just cherish them as memories of the past never to be experienced again? I really believed Valve would have released a macOS version CS2 too. They have publicly denounced Windows' gaming monopoly in the past. With MacOS Sonoma, powerful Apple silicon chips, and Apple making strides to make gaming possible on Mac (and Valve's commitment to making their games available to everyone) I guess we didn't see this coming. Or maybe we did, but we were stubborn. I guess with Valve's darling Steam Deck, macOS became redundant to them as a way to challenge windows gaming monopoly. I am sorry you guys had to hear this, but I feel so disappointed right now, in myself and in Valve. I'm sure most of you CS:GO players were as excited and hopeful as I was for the game's launch.
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is one of the most popular and long-running games on macOS, with a large community following, so the lack of support and transparancy from Valve for Mac users upgrading to Counter-Strike 2 is all the more bewildering.
Based on recent updates to the CS2 macOS depot, some users believe a Mac version is in development, but it would likely relate to Rosetta 2 rather than a version that natively supports Apple silicon. With no word on the subject from Valve, this remains purely speculation.
The long-rumored game, officially announced in March, updates many much-loved maps, and uses Valve's in-house Source 2 engine, featuring sharper textures, more realistic lighting, and new geometry. We've reached out to Valve for comment on this story and will update readers if we hear back.
(Thanks, Scott!)
