Evolution of Counter-Strike

In the year of 1999, Minh “Gooseman” Le and Jess “Cliffe” Cliffe created a mod for the most popular first-person shooter game, Half-Life and released it under the name of “Counter-Strike”. The developers continued to work on the game by themselves till the fourth beta version until Valve began assisting them and later hired them. After a long year of public beta testing, Sierra Entertainment published the retail version of Counter-Strike on November 8 th , 2000. The game quickly amassed a massive following and wide-scale popularity.

Four years after the release of the original Counter-Strike, Valve released Counter-Strike: Condition Zero on March 23 rd , 2004. The game used the GoldSrc Half-Life Engine (a heavily modified QuakeWorld engine) and included multiplayer, updated textures, maps and character models. It also featured a single-player gamemode known as “Tour of Duty” and the “Deleted Scenes” which let the community speculate over a possible storyline in the game

Around the same time, Valve released Counter-Strike: Source which was a complete remake of the original Counter-Strike on the Source Engine, which is a game engine developed by Valve. The Source Engine introduced rag-doll physics which allowed various gameplay changes and changed the way Counter-Strike was perceived by the community

Switch to present day where most of the old veterans from the 1.6 era have transitioned to Counter- Strike: Global Offensive. Released on August 21, 2012, the game has evolved through various patches and updates. From the Arms Deal Update to the recent Wildfire Operation, Valve provides unparalleled support and continuous updates for the game improving its gameplay. Now, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is considered as one of the largest eSports in the world alongside Dota 2 and League of  Legends