Will VALORANT have more players than CS:GO in 2023?

Although Riot Games’ VALORANT seems to draw inspiration from various sources, the concept has proven to be a great success. Although VALORANT includes characters that look like superheroes and have special abilities, it is often characterized as a tactical first-person shooter, making it more comparable to Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.

Since its launch in 2012, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, also known as CS:GO, has created a vital esports and competitive gaming universe of its own. It transformed the first-person shooter genre and promoted esports as a whole.

On the other hand, VALORANT is a much younger title with visibly attractive gameplay and environment managing to conquer esports. Several professional CS:GO players have even switched to Riot’s shooter in search of a better gaming environment or a fresh start.

In terms of player numbers, does Valve’s famous competitive fps outperform Riot’s hero-based competitive shooter, or is it the other way around?

Read on to find out which one has more players.

Is the VALORANT player base in 2023 larger than that of CS:GO?

Although CS:GO has experienced the effects of aging, it continues to attract a sizable player base. At the same time, it remains a highly respected esports franchise. For its part, VALORANT attracts many competitive first-person shooter enthusiasts and has a large esports community.

Despite the similarities between the two games, they have very different gameplay, especially regarding the basic mechanics. However, they have always had a connection between the player bases of the two games, considering that a good portion of the community enjoys both.

Let’s compare the most recent player counts of the mentioned shooters.

VALORANT

According to Active Player, Riot’s tactical shooter currently hosts 774,089 concurrent players and reached a peak daily active player count of over 2,000,000 (December 2022-January 2023).

Monthly active player counts in 2022 (the count was performed on the 30th of each month)

• December: 23,014,487
• November: 22,140,789
• October: 22,501,445
• September: 21,988,040
• August: 21,360,284
• July: 20,760,260
• June: 20,262,155

CS:GO

According to Active Player, there are currently 807,795 players playing CS:GO simultaneously. In the last 30 days, the maximum daily number of active players exceeded 2,000,000.

Monthly active player counts in 2022 (the count was performed on the 30th of each month).

• December: 36,014,577
• November: 35,698,055
• October: 35,014,476
• September: 34,560,886
• August: 33,698,054
• July: 33,205,540
• June: 32,011,445

As can be seen from the numbers, CS:GO has an advantage over VALORANT in terms of the player base in 2023 and a higher number of monthly active players in 2022. This could be because CS:GO has a solid reputation in the gaming world and has been influencing gamers for more than ten years.

Riot’s tactical shooter has not yet come close to what CS:GO has achieved, but it is slowly moving towards a good curve that does not seem to be slowing down any time soon.

Header: Valve