While most players experience Counter-Strike on Windows, until this year many players still chose to play Counter-Strike on Mac. The game’s servers were shared between the operating systems, so luckily player bases were shared as opposed to separate.

The game was still receiving updates to the Mac version until CS2’s release, which can’t be said for every game on the platform. Players even got the most recent Operation, Operation Riptide, on the Mac version. We’re going to be answering the question once and for all – can you play a Counter Strike 2 Mac version?

Credit: Daniel Morris / Valve

PLAYING CS2 ON MAC

Let’s start with the bad news this time: there is no Counter Strike 2 Mac port right now.

Counter-Strike on Mac was possible due to the low system requirements of the game. As frame rate remains an important part of the game, you won’t find many Macs in competitive Counter-Strike. Despite this, the game ran reasonably well on most Macs from the last decade. You can check if your Mac could have run the game from the minimum system requirements below.

Valve hasn’t yet confirmed whether CS2 will be available on Mac. Beta invitations were sent to Windows players only, but there could be a multitude of reasons for that. We would assume that it’ll be available at some point after its initial Windows release.
Valve has generally supported gaming on Mac, so it would be quite a surprise for that to stop. However, recently Valve announced a refund option was being put into place for Mac players, so it doesn’t bode well.

WHY WASN’T COUNTER-STRIKE ON MAC MORE POPULAR?

There’s no one specific answer for this. Valve has supported the Mac version, so those that want to play, can. However, Macs are more commonly used for other purposes than gaming. For example, music production and video editing are extremely common on Mac, with the hardware tailored to those tasks.
It’s mostly a demographic issue. Those that can afford a Mac, can often also afford a dedicated Windows gaming PC, where it makes much more sense to play Counter-Strike for a much smoother experience.

DID MAC GET EVERY COUNTER-STRIKE UPDATE?

Up to now, yes. Mac players had access to all of the same content that Windows players had, and were queued together in matchmaking games. This kept consistency across the board, and allowed Mac gamers to remain entirely up to date.