Cover-Credits:
After an entire decade of soaring popularity for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CSGO), Valve finally released Counter-Strike 2 (CS2) last September, which drastically improved the gameplay mechanics of its predecessors. The Counter-Strike series has always been well-liked within the PC gaming community and is arguably one of the best FPS games of all time. Considering this, both veterans and casual players alike were excited to experience CS2 for its overhauled smoke system, enhanced graphics, and textures which brought it to modern standards.
While CSGO was available for a variety of platforms, many fans are wondering if CS2 also has multiplatform support like its predecessor, allowing them to experience modern Counter-Strike on their favorite devices. Well, here’s the answer.
Is Counter-Strike 2 Available on MacOS?
As stated above, the previous entry in the series was available for a multitude of platforms such as Windows, Linux, MacOS, and classic MacOS, and even for consoles such as the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Later on, the game was also featured on Nvidia’s cloud-streaming service Geforce Now.
Considering this, many fans expected it to be the same with CS2 as well, after all, it would certainly be a lucrative decision for Valve. Unfortunately, that was not the case, and when the game launched on 27th September 2023, Valve announced that the game would only be supported on 64-bit Windows and Linux systems. This certainly bummed out a lot of Apple users who loved playing the tactical shooter on their Macs.
In a Steam Support FAQ, Valve stated the following:
“As technology advances, we have made the difficult decision to discontinue support for older hardware, including DirectX 9 and 32-bit operating systems. Similarly, we will no longer support macOS. Combined, these represented less than one percent of active CS: GO players.”
While the hardware present in the newer Mac systems is more than capable of running CS2 even at maximum settings, this aforementioned change means you can no longer run it natively using MacOS. However, if you only own an Apple desktop or a laptop and you know your way around its software, you can use tools such as Bootcamp, Crossover, etc to dual-boot Windows and MacOS on the same Apple system. You need to remember that you need to have an Intel processor to run Windows as the latest M1, M2, and M3 chipsets are not compatible.
Thankfully, if you do not wish to go through the hassle of dealing with such technicalities, you can still run CS2 using Nvidia’s Geforce Now. However, we recommend that you go this route only if you are a casual gamer as the streaming service might not always be consistent, especially in a competitive setting.
