Trivia / Counter-Strike

• Ascended Fanfic:
  • Arms Race and Demolition mode from CS:GO are based from the "Gun Game" custom scripted gameplay mode where you are given different weapons after each kill.
  • Flying Scoutsman is based on the custom map scoutzknivez, which gives every player a free Scout, removes their pistol, and sets the gravity on low.
  • Several custom maps from the previous installments are (once) included in the official map pool of Global Offensive. These include Cache, Mirage and Tuscan.
• Bad Export for You: Players in the Netherlands, France and Belgium cannot buy keys or open loot boxes due to the lootbox system violating each countries' respective gambling laws. They can, however, buy specific items through the Steam Marketplace.
• Development Gag: The head model for the "Old man with glasses" hostage in Counter-Strike: Source was intended to be the model for Dr. Kleiner in Half-Life 2 before it was replaced during development.
• Follow the Leader:
  • Most modern Korean, Taiwanese, or Chinese free to play FPS adopted gameplay and mechanics similar to Counter-Strike, with the most infamous one being Smilegate's CrossFire. And then in 2008, Nexon licensed Counter-Strike and released their own free to play spin.
  • Search and Destroy game mode in various shooters including Call of Duty.
    • Zombie mode as well. Even Call of Duty, the game everyone else rips off these days, included a similar Infected mode starting from Modern Warfare 3.
  • CS:GO introduces Wingman mode, where the map is even smaller and the match is two players versus two players. It was then followed up by Gunfight mode in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019)
  • Critical Ops, a free-to-play mobile game that plays very similarly to CSGO and even include weapon skins, and non-paying players can grind in game points to unlock crates.
  • CS:GO itself jumps into the Battle Royale Game bandwagon with "Danger Zone" although there are significant gameplay differences (such as everybody is wearing yellow jumpsuits, the ability to rescue hostages for money and every player is equipped with a tablet to buy and deliver weapon via drone)
• Genre Popularizer: Counter-Strike was the game that showed that first person shooters could have a heavy emphasis on teamwork and slower paced, more realistic gameplay but still be fun to both play and watch.
• No Export for You: Global Offensive actually received a boxed physical release (a double pack containing discs for both the Windows and Macintosh version), but it was only released in Russia, India and a few countries in Southeast Asia. Unusually for a PC game, it was also region-locked, meaning players who imported it couldn't use it to play anyway (though considering its availability on steam worldwide and the online nature of the game, it wouldn't matter much to anyone aside from collectors anyway).
  • Subverted with Counter-Strike Nexon: Studio (formerly Nexon: Zombies). While accessing the store page in certain region such as Asia will cause Steam to show an error message stating that it isn't available on your region, Nexon: Studio instead is a retitled Counter-Strike Online that was already available in many Asian countries. As of August 2019, it was officially open, as the Asian localized servers were closed.
  • NEO and NEO -WHITE MEMORIES- aren't available outside of Japan and with the NEO sub-series having been long since discontinued, it never will.
• Prop Recycling:
  • The original, Source, and Global Offensive borrow textures and models from Half-Life, Half-Life 2, and Left 4 Dead 2, respectively.
  • The original chicken was the one you were trying to catch in the Quake II mod "Catch the Chicken".
• Recursive Adaptation: The censored German version of Left 4 Dead 2 included the MP5, Steyr Scout, AWP and SG552 from Counter-Strike: Source. Global Offensive, in turn, uses modified versions of the L4D2 models for the Glock, Desert Eagle, MAC-10, AK-47, and health shot.
• Rereleased for Free: As of 2018, CSGO is free to play. For several months after the announcement, free players can only play with bots or watch matches, while multiplayer or inventory still requires players to purchase. With the release of Danger Zone just a few months after the announcement, the game is completely free to play.^note The Prime version for matchmaking is still paid and costs twice than the game itself used to, but anyone who owned the game before that update was upgraded to Prime for free. Free users, from 2018 to 2021, could also upgrade to Prime for free after reaching level 21, but that was a ground for boosting loopholes, and thus it was turned into a paid-only privilege.
• Troubled Production: Condition Zero was passed between multiple developers, had its development rebooted at least twice and suffered from chronic Schedule Slip.
  • The concept of the game was born when Rogue Entertainment, who was out of work and in financial trouble after EA canned their Playstation 2 port of American McGee's Alice, was contacted by Valve CEO Gabe Newell, who pitched the idea of a single-player-focused game using the gameplay of Counter-Strike. Both parties reached an agreement for the game to start production in April 2001. Rogue quickly went into crunch to have material presentable in time for E3 2001 but one month after development started, Lead Producer Jim Molinets unexpectedly left Rogue. While Rogue insisted that his departure would not impact the project, Valve felt "betrayed" and had serious doubts over Rogue's stability, pulling the plug in May 2001. This served to accelerate Rogue's collapse and left Rogue employees infuriated by the sudden cancellation. Employees wasted little time leaking details of the negotiations as well as a number of early screenshots of the game. Rogue would be acquired by United Developers later in the year.
  • After pulling the game away from Rogue, Gearbox Software reached an agreement with Valve, following their work on the Half-Life expansions, to pick up development of Condition Zero. As development entered 2002, Gearbox and Valve butted heads over the direction of the project - Gearbox had created an arcade-style campaign of mostly disconnected levels and challenges while Valve wanted a connected, story-driven campaign akin to Half-Life, forcing Gearbox to toss out a good deal of work while direction shifted. Work continued with this new direction well into 2002, but with Gearbox lacking enthusiasm for the project and the company also working on PC ports of NightFire and Halo: Combat Evolved, Gearbox pulled out of Condition Zero by July 2002.
  • The game then fell into the hands of Ritual Entertainment, who (like Rogue) had been out of work after a cancelled port from EA and needed a project. Ritual also agreed to produce an Xbox port of the original Counter-Strike. But in June 2003 Ritual ran into financial troubles after finishing Star Trek: Elite Force II and were forced to lay off members of the Condition Zero team. While Ritual completed development of Condition Zero, Valve was deeply unhappy about the quality of the game and a handful of outlets who received review copies were unkind in their reviews. Valve retracted the game's immediate release and - without informing Ritual - assigned Turtle Rock Studios to finish Condition Zero, scrapping Ritual's single-player in favor of skirmishes against bots, redesigned characters, and new maps. Ritual's Xbox port was released in November 2003 to positive reviews, but Condition Zero released in March 2004 to mediocre reviews that considered the game outdated as Half-Life 2 and Counter-Strike: Source were mere months away from their own release. Ritual's single-player portion of the game would be included as Deleted Scenes.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The 1.6 version of Counter-Strike has HUD icons for a number of weapons and equipment that didn't make the game itself, such as Flares and a Rocket Launcher, as well as a Gas Grenade and Molotovs. The Rocket Launcher was featured in Condition Zero: Deleted Scenes, and Molotovs would finally be implemented in Global Offensive.
    • One weapon that didn't even make it to the betas was the HK69 grenade launcher, evidenced by selection and kill icons as well as references to it in the text files.
  • The highly-controversial Tactical Shield was to be included in Source, as shown in this clip of a test build sent to a German gaming magazine. It was scrapped before the game's release, and the only trace of its existence were text references in game files.
  • Global Offensive originally started as a Updated Re-release of Source for the Xbox 360. When Valve realized it had greater potential, it was turned into a entirely new game in the series.
  • The early videos and public beta of Global Offensive had a number of differences with the weapons. Originally, the Galil had a scope attachment like the AUG and SG556, but was cut for balance reasons. The MP5 from the earlier games was to return, with a functional mesh and texture being found in the beta before it was removed completely; a new incarnation of the weapon would be introduced years later in an August 2018 update. Various script files also contain references to a number of other weapons not present in the final game.
  • Concept art exists for a number of factions that didn't make it into Global Offensive, such as the Arctic Avengers and Guerilla Warfare from past games, as well as new factions like the Yakuza and Georgian Riot Police, the latter having a model built before being cut. There's also concept art for female terrorist and counter-terrorist for several factions, though this aspect of playing female character made its way into the game with the introduction of agents.

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