An Overview off all CS:GO Game Modes

CS:GO has sprouted from a damp place of constant Casual matches against people of random skill levels. Today, the players have a plethora of options to choose from. You also get placed with and against people of your own skill level. Or the engine at least tries to do that. Anyway, here’s a brief introduction of all the game modes you can play in if you want to take a break from constant Competitive and Deathmatch games.

Competitive & Premier Competitive

These game modes are a secret to no one. Everyone wants to grind Comp and rise up through their Silver ranks. Premier Competitive was released during Operation Broken Fang, and though it was meant to be only for the duration of that Operation, its popularity helped it stick around. In Premier Competitive, teams get to ban and pick maps, imitating the system of professional CS. If you’re playing with your own team, Premier Competitive is worth getting into.

Casual and Deathmatch

These are the next two famous game modes that everyone loves to play. Sometimes you just wanna play on maps, but without all the seriousness of Comp. Casual is just the place to go, where you can get much more than 5 opponents to kill. Deathmatch might probably be the most famous and likable game mode.

The most attractive part of it is you respawn instantly after dying, and the game lasts only 10 minutes. It’s a great way to practice your aim but beware. Playing too much Deathmatch may make you unhealthy for Comp matches, as you’ll get into the pattern of aggressive maneuvers and reckless shooting.

War Games

These are some of the most interesting game modes CS:GO can offer. Currently, there are four game modes available under War Games: Arms Race, Demolition, Retakes, and Flying Scoutsman. Arms Race and Demolition are related to each other. At the start, the players would be allotted lower guns, and the general objective is to kill enemies and progress through the gun list. Eventually, you’ll have to knife an enemy to win the match. Demolition is a hybrid of Arms Race and Bomb Defusal. Retakes pit 3 Terrorists against 4 Counter-Terrorists.

The round starts with the bomb already planted on a random bombsite of a certain map. As the name suggests, the CTs have to retake the site with utility. Flying Scoutsman is a gamemode inspired by the community gamemode Scouts and Knives. It consists of reduced gravity, improved mid-air acceleration and accuracy, and of course, Scouts i.e SSG 08.

Stab Stab Zap (only Knives and Zeus), Trigger Discipline (Health lost for every missed shot), Boom! Headshot! (Only headshots allowed), etc. are some former War Games and aren’t available today.

Weapons Expert

Weapons Expert is the younger sibling of Competitive. The rules are the same as Comp, but once you buy a weapon, it’s locked for you for the rest of the game. There are fewer rounds and a higher loss bonus. As the name suggests, it’s designed for players to gain mastery in a particular weapon in a competitive scenario.

Danger Zone

CS:GO’s response to the rise of PUBG, Danger Zone is a Battle Royale mode. 18 players are pitted against each other on a pyramidal island, as they scavenge for equipment and cash. Though the Source engine isn’t the optimal method to create a Battle Royale map, Valve has taken a serious approach and outdid themselves by creating the best Battle Royale map CS:GO can have.

Kudos to Valve. They really do care.

Wingman

Operation-sibling of Weapons Expert and War Games, Wingman is another gamemode added during Operation Hydra. It’s similar to Competitive again. In this mode, maps are smaller and compact, and there are only 2 players on one team. In a best-of-16 round format, 2 players defend a bombsite, as the other two try to win it. The rest of the rules are very similar to Competitive.

Private Queues

Private queues are not a gamemode per se, but it’s something that you can officially do. Sometimes you just wanna chill out with your friends and play for fun, instead of going full competitive mode. Earlier, you were supposed to use a third party server to host something like that, but recently Valve made it much easier by allowing that themselves.

So how do you play CS:GO private matches with friends? Go to the Competitive tab and there’s a Private Queue option there. Either share the link provided to your friends, or join through a link provided to you. You don’t gain any XP or anything of that sort in this mode. It’s just for fun!

The Rest

Though all the major game modes have been covered, some of the more rarer game modes can’t be ignored. Co-op Strike is a “hidden” game mode, only available through Operation missions. In Co-op Strike, 2 players work their way through a storyline, fighting AI bots in the process. Though not talked about, I feel like it’s a reincarnation of CS:CZ Deleted Scenes, as the gameplay is very similar to it.

Guardian is another such gamemode that is only available through Operation missions. The players have to complete tasks like a particular number of kills with a particular gun on a given map. Wave after wave, the bots get better and better. It’s a highly interesting gamemode, and I feel that it deserves more attention and player base.

Last but not the least, there’s a Party Mode. It’s a temporary gamemode available to celebrate the birthday of CS:GO. It’s a fun gamemode, with updated assets like chickens with party hats. Killing these chickens blows out confetti from them. Zeus also sprays confetti when fired. Even the bombs release confetti and balloons if defused. Overall, it fits very well for a celebratory day like the birthday of our favorite game.

With so many interesting game modes to choose from, it’s highly unfair that the player base sticks to only a few of these. CS:GO is a game overall, and though the challenge of progressing from rank to rank is exhilarating, we should also give some time to these more relaxed game modes. For once, we should stop criticizing Valve for not caring about the game enough. There are more than 10 modes one can play in, and just exploring these will widen our CS:GO experience tenfold.