I’m not big into numberwang. Vast numbers of people playing a game might indicate that it’s fun, or it might indicate that it’s Ark: Survival Evolved. (I haven’t played Ark and it could be amazing, this is irresponsible journalism and I will hand in my badge and gun shortly.) Point being, it’s more interesting to write about what has made a game popular than the fact that it is so.

Right. Now I have to convince you this animated graph of the most played Steam games from the past four years is fascinating.

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Excuse me while I come to terms with the fact that I ve been playing de_dust2 for 18 years. If my playing Dust2 was a person, I realise, it could legally drink, vote, and join the army in the UK. My playing Dust2 could have its university picked out, could be settling into a career path. It could have moved out. I could have driven it, teary eyed, to its new home, where it would find its own way in life, maybe even find its own first-person shooter map that it could play for 18 years.

I m trying to say that I have been playing Dust2 for a very long time. And somehow, I m still not any fucking good at it>. Sheer bloody mindedness alone should ve seen me get incrementally better, but dipping back into the newly free-to-play Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, I m still making the same mistakes I was in 2001. I m still rushing B too fast and getting mown down by a CT in the cracked wall. I m still hawking around the AWP corridor from the T spawn, getting my head taken off by a sniper shot for my troubles. I m still getting flashbanged by everyone, be they friend or foe. It s frustrating to still be this bad, to still not understand Counter-Strike s emphasis on precision and movement.

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Battle royale games. For a long time the RPS treehouse was unable to comprehend these chaotic, destructive influences on society. Shooters, yes, we understand. Survival games, we get it. But 100-person death marches in a shrinking zone of hate? What s so good about that? Well, this week we ve got a young person* to help us decipher this most murderous of riddles.

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Counter-Strike: Global Offensive’s latest major update brought with it one of the finest battle royale game modes we’ve yet played. Using CSGO’s tried-and-true physics and gunplay mechanics as a foundation, Valve’s new Danger Zone game mode flips the battle royale formula on its head, introducing a number of major innovations which set Danger Zone well apart from its rivals.

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CSGO’s Danger Zone features a brand new map, Blacksite, which dwarfs regular CSGO maps in size, but remains absolutely tiny compared to the maps of other battle royales such as Fortnite and PUBG. But despite its modest scale for its genre, Blacksite is absolutely packed with buildings, loot, trees, cliffs, and other details that are well worth learning the ins and outs of if you want to survive there.

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Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Valve’s venerable squad-based esport FPS, has recently done a couple of very interesting things. The first is that it’s gone free-to-play in a major update released on December 6, 2018. The second is that, in this same update, a brand new game mode was released called Danger Zone, Valve’s response to the ridonkulous success of recent battle royale games such as PUBG and Fortnite.

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CSGO’s Danger Zone mode is a new competitor in the Battle Royale genre, but it turns out it does quite a lot different, not least because of its tiny-but-meticulously-detailed map, Blacksite. After spending an unhealthy number of hours in Blacksite, I’ve put together the below Danger Zone guide on the best locations for loot and safety in Blacksite.

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ANOTHER ONE. I know. But wait! Counter-Strike: Global Offensive‘s battle royale mode might be the most interesting take on the genre I’ve yet seen. It’s snappier, shoppier, and laces every moment with a tension stemming from one eternally nagging question. Do you peek at the Ipad that tells you roughly where your enemies are, or nah?

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We all know the coming of Christmas means the goose is getting fat, but what about the chicken? She’s warm and cosy, as Counter-Strike: Global Offensive has kicked off its festivities by giving chickens wee Christmas jumpers. These jumpers are #2 on the definitive ranking of CS:GO chicken costumes so that’s certainly something to celebrate. Other Christmas festivities include piles of snowballs in spawn points to lob at folks, the return of Militia’s snowy variant, giftwrapped C4, and a new coin trinket for veterans who’ve been Counter-Striking for ten years. But mostly it’s about the chickens.

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Esports stalwart shooter Counter-Strike: Global Offensive has gone free-to-play, accompanied by a new quickfire eighteen-player battle royale mode called Danger Zone. Seemingly out of nowhere Valve have announced that the game is free for everyone on Steam, with previous owners being upgraded to ‘Prime’ account status and awarded a “commemorative Loyalty Badge”. Prime players get matched with their own kind, so the influx of new blood shouldn’t disturb the old pros. New mode Danger Zone’s page makes it sound speedy compared to other battle royales too.

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