Can You Play Counter-Strike 2 If You Were Banned in CS:GO?

When Counter-Strike 2’s beta was first announced, Valve mentioned that your Steam account’s standing would determine if you will gain access to the game or not. Players who have been banned by Valve Anti-Cheat (VAC) are not getting access. If you are wondering if you can play Counter-Strike 2 if you were banned in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO), here’s what you need to know about it.

How CS:GO bans affect your chances of playing Counter-Strike 2

If you have been banned from CS:GO or other Valve games that fall under VAC, you will not be eligible to play Counter-Strike 2. VAC bans are applied when an account, or an account using the phone number tied to other accounts, connects to a VAC-secured server while running cheat software.

Valve Anti-Cheat regularly checks the game files of all users connected to Valve's servers to ensure players are not taking advantage of third-party software. If software of this kind is detected a VAC ban is issued.

How to play Counter-Strike 2 if you are banned in CS:GO

If you are currently banned, you will not be able to appeal your VAC ban. If a VAC ban is issued incorrectly it will be automatically removed after investigation, but Steam Support does not manually remove VAC bans applied to accounts for any reason.

In case you are VAC banned, you need to make a fresh account and you can no longer use a phone number that is tied to a VAC-banned account. If you want access to Steam Guard or other security features for your Steam account that require a phone number, you need to use a fresh phone number. 

You will not be eligible for the Limited Test Beta on a new account but you will be able play Counter-Strike 2 when it officially launches in Summer 2023.

If you want to try the game on any of the compatible platforms, you can check out our guide on how to play Counter-Strike 2’s Limited Beta Test. You can also check out our guide that discusses Counter-Strike 2’s console release.