Counter Strike Global Offensive is now free for offline play against bots, or for viewing
online matches! If everybody in the whole world didn’t already
have it then this would be bigger news. But that doesn’t stop us all from being curious
about what IS featured in the free version, does it.
I investigated. Unfortunately, this meant creating a NEW steam account, and facing all
of the limitations and problems that go along with that.
The Forbidden Klik was born, and I went to the store page to boot up the free version
of CS:GO. It loaded without a problem and soon I was
on the main menu, which looked all nice and panorama-y… panoramic? …but it did feel
a little empty without the player model on show. If you thought you could change that
by going to the inventory, think again- trying to access it asks you if you want to buy a
game license. And since doing that would miss the point of this video, I had to decline
which returned me straight to the empty main menu again. It appears that skins are a multiplayer-only
feature. It’s almost as though the only reason for skins in the first place is to
show off to other real people! Aside from the news feed, and a box in the
corner forever asking if you’d like to buy the game, there’s not a lot else to look
at. So let’s jump into the games! Now, this being a free, offline, bot only,
single-player experience there’s no point in trying to find a multiplayer game.
But of course, that didn’t stop me from trying, first with OFFICIAL MATCHMAKING and
then with the COMMUNITY SERVER BROWSER, both of which sent me to the ‘DO YOU WANT TO
BUY THIS GAME’ screen, which of course I didn’t.
Before trying to get any more stuff that I shouldn’t be allowed to get, I’ll cover
what you DO get in this version. You get the training course. You get to practice
with bots on all different game modes and maps. That alone should be enough to give
people a taste of what Counter-Strike’s about, even if they don’t get to experience
the delightful companionship that makes the multiplayer scene so appealing. It was kind
of fun to get tons of achievements from every kill. Kind of made me miss the good old days
when the game first came out and everybody tried to unlock them all!
AND- something else you get from the free edition that I thought was pretty cool- you
can download custom maps from the workshop, any of which you’re subscribed to will appear
in the WORKSHOP MAPS section for easy access. Valve, please do something about this workshop
spam. Anybody new to CS:GO, if you see things offering free skins, don’t do it, it’s
a trap. I downloaded and tested a number of operation-worthy
maps from the workshop, like subzero and everything from 3kliksphilip. I didn’t think there
would be a restriction on what was allowed, and sure enough, as long as you play offline
against bots, you can play whatever map you like! I had a fun control point game with
bots. I had another custom experience on asymmetry. There’s plenty of fun to be had, thanks
to the love and effort that talented mappers have poured into the workshop for this game.
Now in 2018, offline play doesn’t seem too special any more. Why would you even bother
picking it up? Well, I’ve got a soft spot for it. I grew up with the original Unreal
Tournament, which is also a multiplayer game. But I only ever played single-player on it,
starting with the classic map pool, before advancing to custom stuff. Thanks to the bot
support, I had YEARS of fun from playing a multiplayer game, singleplayer. It’s hard
for me to describe the appeal now, but if you’re new to PC gaming and have an imagination
there’s definitely something exciting about it. And I like to think there are people out
there today who would still have a blast from this kind of experience.
So in that respect, a free, offline version of Global Offensive is really, really cool.
It would be even better if the Source SDK was available for it as well, but sadly it
seems like you have to buy Global Offensive if you want to be able make your own maps
for it. Next up is the WATCH feature- you may not
be able to play multiplayer games, but you can still spectate them. And with all of the
functionality you’d normally get from this feature. I don’t think it’s a secret that,
with the next Major coming up, Valve are hoping that a free edition of the game will attract
a new audience to it, not just to play against bots but also to stick around to watch the
pros battle it out. You could always watch it on a streaming platform, but it’s nice
to also have free access to the matches from within Counter Strike itself. It will be interesting
to see what kind of impact a free edition has on the tournament’s viewing numbers…
if any! As well as live streams, you also have access
to all of the matches ever played in any previous major, all viewable through the usual demo
feature. There’s also the tab for the upcoming MAJOR that I was just talking about, though
you’re unable to do the pick-em challenge… unless you want to buy the full edition of
the game. Lastly, I’ve seen a few people asking if
you can use the free edition to play over the LAN with friends. But… no you can’t.
Seriously! I tried joining 3kliksphilip’s game, that failed. I didn’t even have the
invite button to be able to invite him to mine. I couldn’t connect to a game of his
even after one had started. At this point I was beginning to think it wasn’t possible.
And that’s why I’m a little bit annoyed with the CSGO subreddit about this. After
trying and failing, I found a huge long thread full of people saying how you could get it
working. And some of these people seemed so confident, I assumed they must have gotten
it working themselves. But I tried EVERYTHING in that thread. I even went to the hassle
of creating a dedicated server on another PC, of which I simply couldn’t connect to.
However, the moment I changed to a steam account with a full version CS:GO I could connect
immediately. That’s good enough proof for me that the free version does not have LAN
support. MAYBE there’s some kind of workaround for it, but I doubt it would be Valve’s
intention if there was. Also over on Reddit, Chivalrousconjurer says
that you can queue for third party services like Faceit and ESEA- but before you get your
hopes up, know that you won’t connect to the matches themselves, so don’t bother
trying. In conclusion: the free edition of Global
Offensive lacks any multiplayer functionality of any sort… but you can still spectate
matches. Hopefully this video will have prevented thousands
of new steam accounts from being created, out of pure curiosity as to what this mysterious
new ‘free’ Counter Strike is like. If you have any more questions about it, ask
in the comments section and I’ll get back to you. But only if the comment is sensible.
And nice.