Counter-Strike is 20 years old and Valve comes with a retro version of Dust II

Twenty years ago, Counter-Strike came out. This modification for the original Half-Life, like the shooter from Valve, became very popular and grew into its own franchise. In honor of this anniversary, Valve is releasing a retro version of the well-known Dust II playing field.

Counter-Strike first came out as a beta on June 19, 1999, and the first official 1.0 version was released on November 8, 2000. Valve closed the WON servers used for the original Counter-Strike in July 2004, directing players to use Steam. The mod was created by Minh Le and Jess Cliffe; they were later hired by Valve and the intellectual property also passed.

The original Counter-Strike was updated several times, followed by a remake in 2004, a standalone version in the form of Counter-Strike: Source. The name already indicates that the game was based on the Source engine, which was also used for Half-Life 2. This game also received a successor, in the form of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive released in 2012.

Valve is celebrating the 20th anniversary of Counter-Strike by fitting the original version of Dust II into the Casual Dust II playfield group of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. In this Casual game mode, rotation alternates between the modernized, embellished version of Dust II and the classic old version.