Why isn’t Counter-Strike 2 available on macOS? Valve responds

Last March, Valve announced Counter Strike 2, the long-awaited next generation of first-person shooter. According to Gabe Newell, this will represent a marked technical evolution compared to CS:GO, but he didn’t stray from the essence that made him an industry icon. However, with its launch came some bad news for Mac users: the game is not compatible with macOS.

The incident caused outrage among players because Valve did not notify about it in advance. Counter Strike 2 was released as a mandatory update CS:GO on all platforms on which the game was available. But once the installation was complete, the new game was not only impossible to access from the Mac, but also officially rollback.

A few weeks after this episode, the developers finally explained the reason for this decision. Therefore, Valve believes that CS:GO I don’t have enough players on macOS enough to make it worth developing a version Counter Strike 2 compatible.

This is explained on the Steam support page:

“Counter Strike 2 represents the greatest technological leap in history K.S. and our goal is to continue to develop Counter Strike in the coming years. As technology has evolved, we have made the difficult decision to discontinue support for older hardware, DirectX 9, and 32-bit operating systems. Likewise, we will no longer support macOS. Together they represent less than one percent of active gamers. CS:GO. In future, Counter Strike 2 will exclusively support 64-bit Windows and Linux.”

Valve

Counter Strike 2 turns away from macOS

What users CS:GO on Mac and older systems they will represent less than 1% of active players This should come as no further surprise. It’s a fact that Apple computers have never been known for their gaming power. games. However, Cupertino residents are making interesting attempts to rectify the situation.

During WWDC this year, a DirectX 12 emulator was introduced that allows you to run Windows games on macOS. Thanks to this tool, titles like Cyberpunk 2077 or Diablo IV on Mac. Hideo Kojima also plans to bring his games to Apple OS, starting with Death. That’s why, now that Apple seems determined to turn its attention to video games, it’s amazing that Valve is deciding don’t even give it a chance Counter Strike 2 in your software.

Among other things, there is a technical reason for the absence Counter Strike 2 on MacOS. The graphical section of the first-person shooter depends on the Vulkan API, which does not have native support on the Mac. And although it is possible to implement it on Metal using MoltenVK, it is far from an ideal solution and Valve does not seem to be doing this. I want to leave something behind, left to chance.

What will happen to the players? CS:GO on Mac and beyond? Basically, they will be able to continue to access said game through the version heritage that Gabe Newell’s team launched. However it has no support matchmaking; that is, look for opponents who have an identical or very similar skill level to that of each user. But that’s not all, as this option will no longer be supported on January 1, 2024. This means that from this date you will not receive updates to fix bugs or other shortcomings.

If you’re frustrated that you can’t play Counter Strike 2 on your Mac, Valve will offer you some kind of compensation. If you purchased a Prime upgrade CS:GO and you’ve played this game mostly on macOS since its announcement CS2 in March and its launch in September, you can request a corresponding refund. You have until December 1st to do this.