Last March, Valve announced Counter Strike 2, the long-awaited new generation of its first-person shooter game. According to Gabe Newell, it would represent a notable technical evolution compared to CS:GO, but he would not move away from the essence that made him an icon of the industry. However, its launch came with an unpleasant news for Mac users: the game is not compatible with macOS.
The case generated outrage among players, since Valve did not give prior notice about it. Counter Strike 2 was released as a mandatory update of CS:GO on all platforms on which the game was available. But once the installation was complete, not only was the new game impossible to access from a Mac, but it also couldn’t be officially rolled back.
A few weeks after this episode, the developers have finally explained the reason for this decision. In summary, Valve considered that CS:GO I didn’t have enough players on macOS enough for it to be worth developing a version of Counter Strike 2 compatible.
This is explained on the Steam support page:
“Counter Strike 2 represents the greatest technical leap in the history of C.S. and our goal is to continue developing Counter Strike in the years to come. As technology advances, 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, these represented less than one percent of active gamers. CS:GO. In the future, Counter Strike 2 will exclusively support 64-bit Windows and Linux.”
Valve
Counter Strike 2 turns its back on macOS
That the users of CS:GO on Mac and older systems they will represent less than 1% of active players It should not be a cause for further surprise. It’s a fact that Apple computers were never particularly famous for their gaming muscle. gaming. However, those from Cupertino are making interesting efforts to remedy it.
During this year’s WWDC, a DirectX 12 emulator was introduced that allows you to run Windows games on macOS. Thanks to this tool, titles such as Cyberpunk 2077 either Diablo IV running on a Mac. While Hideo Kojima also plans to bring his games to the Apple OS, starting with Death Stranding. That is why, now that Apple does seem determined to pay attention to video games, it is striking that Valve chooses to don’t even give it a chance Counter Strike 2 in your software.
Beyond everything, there is a technical reason behind the absence of Counter Strike 2 on macOS. The graphics section of the first-person shooter depends on the Vulkan API, which does not have native support on Mac. And although it is possible to implement it on Metal with MoltenVK, it is far from being the perfect solution and Valve seems not to want to leave anything behind. left to chance.
What will happen to the players? CS:GO on Mac, onwards? In principle, they will be able to continue accessing said game through a version legacy that Gabe Newell’s team have launched. However, it does not have support for matchmaking; that is, to look for rivals who have an identical or very similar level of skills to that of each user. But that’s not all, since support for this variant will no longer be available on January 1, 2024. This means that from that date you will not receive updates to fix bugs or other flaws.
If you are disappointed about not being able to play Counter Strike 2 on your Mac, Valve will offer you some sort of compensation. If you purchased the Prime Status Upgrade of CS:GO and you played said title mostly on macOS since the announcement of CS2 in March and its launch in September, you can claim the corresponding refund. You have time to do it until December 1st.