Counter-Strikehas been a premier series since its inception back in 1999. Astaple in the FPS genre, almost every gamer is familiar withCounter-Strike. Today, the most recent installment of the game (CS:GO) boasts a huge player base and its Esports landscape is flourishing. The franchise is so popular that most of its actual maps including Dust, Seige, and Nuke are made by fans.
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A game with such a rich history is sure to have a lot of trivia that fans might be unaware of. Diving deep into the depths, here are 10 facts that most players won’t know about theCounter-Strikeseries.
10It Was Initially A Mod For Half-Life
It’s bizarre to look back and find thatCounter-Strikedid not start as a stand-alone game.Counter-Strikewas initially a mod developed by Minh “Gooseman” Le and Jess “Cliffe” Cliffe for a popular gameHalf-Life.
After its release, the mod immediately picked up the pace and started to attract a large number of players. Eventually, it became so popular that the rights for themodwere bought by Valve, and the first stand-aloneCounter Strikegame was developed.
9There Is An Arcade Version Of Counter-Strike
Counter-Strike Neo, which is developed by gaming giants Namco, is an arcade adaption of the originalCounter-StrikeMod. The game was released in 2005 and was only available in Japan.
It was one of the only few games that were dedicatedly made for the Linux operating system.Counter-Strike Neodid not feature the traditional Counter-Terrorist and Terrorist scenarios but had CSF and NEO, which were based on the cyber-space aesthetic of the game.
8Few Bots Are Named After Real People
The names of some of the bots in the game are indeed based on actual individuals. In hard difficulty, there is a bot name Gabe, which is named after Gabe Newell, the founder of Steam.
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There is also a bot named Dave, who is the creator of popular maps Dust, Dust 2, and Cobble. In expert mode, there are two bots named Minh and Cliff as a tribute to the original developers of the game.
7Jeff Cliffe Was The Original Voice Artist Behind All The Voice Commands
All the radio commands and dialogue heard in each installment of the game were recorded by co-creator Jeff Cliffe. It wasn’t until theGlobal Offensiveversion of the game that each faction got their own unique voice actors.
Most of the voice commands have been replaced by a newer one by now, however, some commands are still untouched, such as “Counter Terrorist Win” or “Terrorist wins.”
6The In-game Feud That Became Personal
In 2010, A man named Julien Barreaux came into the spotlight after he stabbed andnearly killed another personover an in-game feud. According to reports, Julien lost a knife fight against another player in aCounter-Strikegame.
This pushed him over the edge of sanity, and he stabbed the opposing player in real life after tracking him for 6 months. Fortunately, the victim barely survived, and Julien was arrested for the misconduct.
Since the originalCounter-Strikewas a mod forHalf-Life, it included all the elements ofHalf-Life. This also meant that the mod had Drivable vehicles just likeHalf-Life.
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During beta 7.0, the developers officially added the vehicle support to the game where players could drive vehicles in the game. However, the feature was removed in future updates as it was hindering the competitive environment of the game.
4Valve Has Never Fully Developed A Counter-Strike Game
After the mod was picked up byValveand turned into a fully-fledged franchise, there hasn’t been a singleCounter-Strikegame that has been fully developed by Valve. Even though Valve assists in the development, maximum work for it is always outsourced.
This has been the trend since the beginning, and this was again the case forCS:GO, which was developed by Hidden Path Entertainment alongside Valve.
3The Weapon shown on the CS:GO Logo Is Not Available In The Game
The official logo ofCS:GOfeatures a person holding a Scar-L weapon. Interestingly, this weapon never made it into the live version of the game due to unknown reasons.
The Scar-L, or commonly known as Scar-17 during the development phase, was axed from the game, but the logo however was never updated. Valve has never revealed as to why the logo was never updated, and at this point, it’s very unlikely that they do update it.
2The Name Counter-Strike Was Inspired By A TV Show
OnMarch 15, 1999, the two developers were brainstorming ideas on what to call their newHalf-Lifemod. Suggested names included Counter Terror, Counter-Terrorism, Strike Force, Frag Heads, Terrorist Wars, Terror Force, Counter Force, and Counter-Strike.
Ultimately, it boiled down to Counter-Strike as it was the best sounding name, and coincidently it was also the name of a Canadian TV show that developer Minh Lee used to watch.
1Bomb-Defuse Maps Were Not Initially Part Of The Game
In the beginning,Counter-Strikeonly featured hostage-rescue maps and there were no bomb-defuse maps available in the game. The bomb-defuse maps were added in beta 4.0 and it quickly surpassed the hostage-rescue maps in popularity.
Interestingly, when bomb-defuse maps were initially added, players could plant the bomb anywhere on the map and there weren’t any bomb sites. This was later changed to only two bomb sites per map.
