Counter-Strike 1.6: Why Playing the Legendary FPS in 2024 Can Actually Be a Good Idea

A lot of Counter-Strike fans became upset that Valve recently decided to launch Counter-Strike 2 as a free and mandatory update for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. That means that there’s no more possibility for CS: GO to stick around, which was practically a remake version of the legendary Counter-Strike 1.6, but with the graphics on steroids and with a few improvements when it comes to the weapons and maps.

Counter-Strike 2 had plenty of bugs at launch, not to mention the fact that the game requires a much more powerful PC than its predecessor. CS2 also demands about 80GB of free storage space, while CS: GO can work if you have at least 15GB. In other words, it’s obvious why a lot of fans still want CS: GO back and are not impressed by what the new Counter-Strike 2 has to offer.

Therefore, the ultimate question arises: is the legendary Counter-Strike 1.6 still good to play? Let’s try to find out!

CS 1.6 is still fun to play, but there’s a catch

Obviously, any gamer out there has their own preferences. Many gamers care about the graphics a lot and wouldn’t accept the idea of playing a game that doesn’t look good. If you’re among them, surely you wouldn’t like the idea of running a game that’s almost a quarter of a century old, such as Counter-Strike 1.6.

Personally, I firstly care about the gameplay itself, and I believe that the graphics don’t represent a priority. That’s why I still play a ton of retro games today, and I absolutely love Counter-Strike 1.6. First of all, there would be no Counter-Strike 2 without the legendary 1.6. The game that came out in the year 2000 is totally worth playing even today in my book. It doesn’t have bugs, and it works well on just about any PC.

Counter-Strike 1.6 is still incredibly fun, as you can join either one of the two teams and have a lot of weapons at your disposal. The iconic dust2 map never gets old, as most players prefer it while playing a good old match of Counter-Strike 1.6. Yes, the graphics are obsolete, judging by today’s standards, but even so, CS 1.6 is still a fun game to play if you don’t care about the graphics too much. There are still games launched in recent years that follow the ‘retro’ pattern, as the developers haven’t been preoccupied with the graphics at all.

The servers on CS 1.6 are still teeming with players

Contrary to what you may be tempted to believe, there are still a lot of folks out there who jump onto the servers and look for other opponents online for a good old CS 1.6 match. The servers are actually teeming with players even today in 2024, which is amazing for such an old game. You can meet other people online and have an amazing time playing the game together.

Don’t get me wrong, though. I don’t play retro games such as Counter-Strike 1.6 because my computer is too old. I have a Lenovo laptop that is equipped with 16GB of RAM, a 2GB graphics card, and an AMD Ryzen 5 processor. It’s not actually a gaming laptop, but you can still have a lot of fun with it by jumping into those virtual worlds if you’re more like a casual gamer like myself.