Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is one of the most popular games in the world today. The playerbase is huge and the e-sports tournament scene is practically unrivaled by any other FPS out there. However, it’s easy to forget that Counter-Strike’s humble beginnings all started as a half-cocked mod for the original Half-Life.

Designed as a sort of bootleg version of Rainbow Six, the first iterations of Counter-Strike weren’t pretty. However, the terrorist versus operator game mode evolved over time and eventually morphed into the beast that is today.

Website Gamopo put together a quick summary of Counter-Striker’s history, going from its inception up until its most recent release. You can check it out below.

gamopo.com

I’ve never been a big fan of Counter-Strike. The limited mobility, lack of ironsights, bunny-hopping firefights and corner-peeping sniping always made it seem so goofy to me. I always preferred the more tactically engaged shooters like Operation 7, where designing your weapon in the right way affects its performance on the field, resulting in a lot of tweaks and adjustments having to be made while duking it out against opposing teams.

Even still, there’s no denying that Counter-Strike is a beast of a game as far as popularity is concerned. It doesn’t get half as much attention in the marketing department as games like Battlefield or Call of Duty, but it’s right up there with them as far as user engagement and e-sports is concerned.

I’m just curious what they’re going to do for the next Counter-Strike? And how are they going to filter all those Global Offensive players to the next outing? They seem very intent on sticking with what works. And in some ways, they’re right. Fans have incessantly complained about each iteration of Call of Duty, and I don’t think Activision and their development slaves will ever hit that perfect notch again, but they’re going to keep trying regardless.

All of the aforementioned versions of Counter-Strike are either available on Steam or through the passageways that lead to where the raging rivers flow.

(Main image courtesy of Zenexar)