Will Counter-Strike 2 Be on Consoles (PlayStation & Xbox)?

The long-awaited release of CS2 took place on Steam, so the entire gaming community rejoiced and warmly welcomed the new iteration of the most popular competitive shooter of all time. But is it really the entire gaming community? At the moment, CS2 remains a PC exclusive, and fans of any other platform can only enviously watch the updated smoke physics on YouTube. 

Even if you are the owner of any operating system other than Windows, you can’t officially play CS2, although there are some workarounds to play CS2 on Mac. But is it the case for PS5 or Xbox owners, and will Counter-Strike 2 be on consoles? Let’s find out. 

Is It Possible to Play Counter-Strike 2 on Consoles?

At the moment, playing CS2 is the prerogative of PC Master Race only. Whether you own a sleek and elegant PS5 with adaptive triggers or prefer the Xbox Series X/S with its game pass that includes many games available on the day of release, CS2 remains an unattainable dream for you. The same goes for Nintendo owners, but they most likely have never been interested in competitive online shooters in the first place and enjoy a completely different type of gameplay. So, at the moment, CS2 is available only for PC users running Windows, and owners of all other operating systems and devices are offboard.

Is Counter-Strike 2 Coming to Consoles?

So, will Counter Strike 2 be on PS5 or any other console? It seems that Valve isn’t going to release Counter-Strike 2 on PS5 or Xbox at this point, and there’s no reason to believe anything will change soon. Once upon a time, Gabe Newel said that cross-platform was the future, but those times are long gone. Though CS: GO wasn’t a PC exclusive on release, there were no ports for PS4 and Xbox One nor for PS5 and Microsoft’s new iteration of consoles.

There are several reasons for this. First, Valve simply doesn’t want to split its audience into segments and spread the studio’s efforts to support various versions of the same game. Real cross-platforming could not be achieved for reasons we’ll talk about later, and making separate versions for different hardware would take away valuable studio resources.

Controls are another reason there is no CS2 on consoles. Even the most skillful player with a gamepad will still be inferior in accuracy to a player with a keyboard and mouse. The solution might be adding an aiming assist. However, this way, Valve would give console players an advantage, which is unacceptable for competitive online shooters.

For PC gamers looking to optimize their Counter-Strike 2 experience regardless of their system's capabilities, delve into best CS2 settings for strong and weak pc's to ensure smooth gameplay and competitive edge.

Are Previous Versions of Counter-Strike Available on Console?

As you know, CS 1.6 was originally a mod for Half-Life. Eventually, Valve and the mod authors teamed up and even created several ports. That is, CS 1.6 was released on Windows and Xbox, as well as OS X and Linux. Then, there were several more sequels. In particular, Counter-Strike: Condition Zero and Counter-Strike: Source with new versions of Valve’s engines. They were not available on consoles, but ports for Linux and OS X did exist.

But everything changed with the official release of CS: GO. Well, not from the beginning. At first, it was quite the opposite as the game was developed by Hidden Path studio, with the aim only at console audiences — Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Only when Valve paid attention to the development the game was reformatted for all platforms. In 2011, Gabe even openly criticized Microsoft for the impossibility of cross-platform between Xbox and Windows. The game had many traces of the console-oriented past: gamepad support, increased detailed crosshair, and even the legendary circular menu to simplify purchasing.

However, the game did not support cross-platform on release. Newel attributed this to problems with the contracts. You can still play CS: GO on Xbox 360, but there’s not much sense in it, as it hasn’t been updated since 2012. All the updates after that were for Windows, OS X, and Linux only.

Is It Possible to Play CS2 With a Gamepad?

Counter-Strike 2 does support controllers. Both the Xbox gamepad and the PS5 Dual Sense gamepad work in CS2. You can play the game as usual using both controllers or their third-party counterparts. The game will automatically recognize the device and will respond to input.

However, it’s not the best choice. Playing CS2 with a gamepad gives your opponents a serious advantage. The accuracy of aiming with a joystick is not comparable to the accuracy of a keyboard and mouse.