Valve recently released Counter-Strike 2 He explained that he had no plans to release a macOS version of his game, citing the lack of players on Mac devices as the primary reason for this. Valve announced its decision in the Steam support FAQ, stating that it was discontinuing support for older hardware, including DirectX 9 and 32-bit operating systems, as well as macOS. According to Valve, these platforms combined represent less than 1% of active Counter-Strike players: Less than 1% of Global Offensive (CS:GO) players. As a result, Counter-Strike 2 will only support 64-bit Windows and Linux.
With the release of Counter-Strike 2 last month, all CS:GO players, including Mac users, were subjected to a 26 GB update. However, Mac users noticed that the update made both the original game and the update unplayable due to the lack of support and the lack of a rollback option.
Valve has announced that Mac players who play CS:GO on macOS between the Counter-Strike 2 Limited Test announcement (March 22, 2023) and the launch of Counter-Strike 2 (September 27, 2023) will receive their Prime Status Upgrade regardless of when they purchased their Prime Status Upgrade. He stated that they would be entitled to receive a refund. This cashback offer will be valid until December 1, 2023.
For those who want to continue playing CS:GO on macOS, Valve will provide access to an older version or “frozen build” of the game that includes all the features of CS:GO except the official matchmaking. However, support for this version of CS:GO will end on January 1, 2024. After this date, certain functionality that relies on compatibility with the Game Coordinator, such as access to inventory, may break or fail.
Although the decision to end macOS support affected a small percentage of players, CS:GO remains a hugely popular first-person shooter with a large player base, and this decision is disappointing for Mac users. One of the challenges in developing Counter-Strike 2 for macOS is the lack of native support for the Vulkan API on which the game is based. Vulkan is designed to replace OpenGL and offers advanced features, but Apple devices do not provide native support for it. While there is an open source library called MoltenVK that provides a Vulkan implementation on top of Apple’s Metal graphics API, it still lacks some of Vulkan’s advanced features.