Ahead of the imminent release of Counter-Strike 2, which will replace CS:GO, players have been taking their time to play CS:GO as a form of farewell before it makes way for the new game, and on Tuesday, ESL shared the time span that true GOAT s1mple spent playing CS:GO.
The tournament organizers did so in a post on X, where they revealed that the Ukrainian player had spent 23,476 hours playing the game so far. That is an average of around six hours a day since the game’s release. This is also around 978 days since CS:GO went live in 2012.
While the numbers are quite incredible, it’s not unexpected considering the caliber of player that s1mple is. The 25-year-old has been an active player since 2013 and blossomed into a big name in 2014 and 2015, playing for HellRaisers and FlipSid3 Tactics, respectively, in that period.
The undisputed GOAT of Counter-Strike has been consistent in the CS:GO game, and Ukrainian, after joining Natus Vincere in 2016, led them to numerous trophies, including PGL Major Stockholm 2021. Furthermore, he’s considered the best player to ever play CS:GO, which is more or less a consensus, and with the CS2 coming, that status won’t change anytime soon.
He’s the only pro to reach first place in HLTV’s Best of the Year three times after winning the trophy in 2022, 2021, and 2018.
On Wednesday, Sept. 27, Valve changed the Counter-Strike Twitter account banner to “dawn of a new day” as the countdown for the release of CS2. CS2 will run on the game engine Source 2
The Source 2 engine will make CS2 better than CS:GO in terms of graphics, and all the maps look more beautiful. The most noticeable gameplay changes are the way smokes behave in CS2, filling an entire space and showing the same to all players. There is also a new competitive matchmaking mode tagged Premier and a switch to 24 rounds instead of 30 in competitive.
Daniel Ademiju Idowu
