Original Counter-Strike fans hoping to relive the classic experience with fresh, modern graphics are in for a heartbreak. Valve has removed Classic Offensive, a fan-made mod recreating the retro, early 2000s CS experience for Counter-Strike 2, from Steam. The project, active since 2017, has passed Steam Greenlight and followed Valve’s guidelines but it was suddenly ‘retired’ out of nowhere. SteamDB’s notification states the game is no longer available, redirecting users to the main page when clicking the Store button.
“[…] We’ve received an automated Steam Support message about having retired our app without any reason explained,” the team stated. “This is devastating as we’ve worked on the project for almost 8 years now.” The developers expressed disappointment, comparing the move to a ‘worse form of cease and desist.’
Classic Offensive team claimed it had adhered to all legal and technical requirements, even consulting with developers on different Valve projects. When the CS:GO source code leaked in 2020, the modders even deliberately avoided it and ensured compatibility with the game’s updates by its own hands.
“Nobody at Valve told us to stop what we were doing during all those years, no sort of formal request,” said the team in a statement. “We feel like we were treated unfairly, and have been blinded by our own passion for the game.”
However, at some point, the Counter-Strike mod team might have gone too far with its effort. As stated in the Classic Offensive ModDB page, when Valve suddenly dropped communication in 2019, it made its own patch that connects to CS:GO lobbies.
The team wrote, “[…] We asked about getting a licence [sic] to access their source code, which didn’t result in a positive answer. […] We got tired of sending them emails and went with the patching route to continue our work.”
Because its binary patching should allow CS:GO modding to be ‘more permissive,’ it decided to go through with the idea. “Opening our doors to modding might be a good idea in the long run, so we’ll have to play with this idea,” the team added.
Despite not using anything from the massive 2020 CS:GO leak, this could have been what broke the camel’s back. Still, the Counter-Strike mod would’ve provided players with a more streamlined, classic gameplay experience without skins and lootboxes.
Valve has not yet issued a formal comment on the removal. Meanwhile, the Classic Offensive team suggests other modders reconsider relying on Steam as their primary release platform. Especially for multiplayer projects as the Half-Life maker can just drop its support out of the blue. “We do not think our case is an isolated one at all,” it advises.
