esports
Potential leaks and new engine entries hint that Valve are working on a Battle Royale mode for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. We can’t know for sure, but what do the pros think it would be like?
Valve are usually quiet about anything they’re working on – whether it’s brand new games or patches (or lack thereof) for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, we won’t know what’s going on until they put something out in the open. So any piece of news – no matter how small – gets the community fired up and the speculation among armchair fans going.
Rumours of a Battle Royale mode for CS:GO have popped up once again, and with the continuing success of Fortnite and PUBG, and BR-esque modes being added to the likes of Call of Duty and Battlefield, it makes sense that Valve may want to follow suit. But right now there’s very little to go on.
Apparently there are large maps in testing. But with more and more money being poured into battle royale esports, a CS:GO mash-up could be quite lucrative. The game’s casual players, who are often crying out for more stuff to do in the game, would most likely jump into a brand new battle royale mode and the game’s mechanics could be turned into something much bigger than the 5v5 games we’re used to seeing.
The possibilities are quite exciting. But while it's a stretch away from what we’re used to with CS:GO, it could serve as the right foundation for a thrilling 100-man rumble. We asked some of the top players in the world whether they think it’s a good idea.
“I'd assume it’ll just be a casual mode for people to play when they’re not playing the regular game,” says Cloud9’s Will ‘RUSH’ Wierzba. “I don’t know if battle royale and Counter-Strike would work that well. It might be fun but I don’t think it would be competitive necessarily.
"In general, battle royales aren’t very spectator-friendly. It depends how many players are in it, but even Fortnite and PUBG are very boring to watch in my opinion. The end of the game is just a camp-fest and waiting for people to die to the circle.”
It seems that RUSH doesn’t have much faith in the potential mode, but he admits it could be good if Valve puts some effort into it: “If CS:GO changed battle royale to be the actual mechanics of the game, like shooting, maybe it could be good. I liked Fortnite before building became more popular. I liked it when it was minimalistic, with no editing. It was more focused on the shooting aspect and winning that way. Now it’s more based on building, and I’m not a fan, so I don’t play anymore.”
RUSH's comments are coming with the benefit of experience. He has hundreds of hours in both PUBG and Fortnite and he was even in the top 10 in duos for a period of time – that was all while maintaining his spot as a professional CS:GO player. But Casper ‘cadiaN’ Moller of North agrees that battle royales are a little too slow for his taste.
“I don’t really enjoy the esports aspect of battle royale games, I think they’re too drawn out,” he says. “I think when the action is on it’s super fun, but it sometimes takes too long to get there and it’s hard to spectate all the players.”
For cadiaN, if Valve is developing a battle royale mode, he thinks it should be focusing its efforts elsewhere within the game: “I think potentially battle royale could be a good move for CS, but I think there are a lot of other things they could do to keep the game alive and do more for casual players. If they focus on doing more updates and upgrades for the matchmaking system and making more operations, then it would be equally beneficial.”
Ethan ‘nahtE’ Arnold of NRG echoes his fellow pros’ sentiments. “CS isn’t the game that could go to battle royale,” he says. “I’m sure there’s a way to do it, but the way it is now, it won’t work. Being a professional player, you only see the game one way – as a first person shooter – so I can’t think of a way to do battle royale.”
Thankfully for CS:GO fans who are hoping to see a battle royale mode on the horizon, it’s not all doom and gloom from the pros.
“I don’t think it’s going to take over the regular competitive CS game mode soon, but I think it’ll still be a fun thing to play, and it might draw some more attention to CS,” says Chris ‘chrisJ’ de Jong of mousesports. “It’s gonna be a good thing if Valve works it out properly.”
So if CS:GO BR does release, and does end up being good, with esports attached to it, would any of the pros make the switch? The short answer is no.
“My future is definitely in normal CS, until a different game comes or CS goes, my focus will be here,” says cadiaN, and that was the general feeling from the other pros as well.
But 28-year-old chrisJ says us he’s simply “too old to make the switch.” Never say never, Chris, battle royales look like they’re here to stay.
