This CSGO trivia quiz has 70 free questions with answers covering the whole life of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, from its 2012 launch on PC and consoles to the day Counter-Strike 2 replaced it on Steam in 2023. It covers the game itself (modes, weapons, ranks, the Arms Deal update that created the skin economy), the esports scene (every era of Majors from DreamHack Winter 2013 to the last CS:GO Major in Paris), the players and teams that defined it, and the scandals: iBUYPOWER, the coaching bug, skin gambling and Valve's money-laundering crackdown on keys. It is written for people who actually played and watched, so expect questions about the 87-0 streak, the Boston Major, Danger Zone, Trust Factor and Dust II's 2017 makeover, with difficulty running from things every player knows to a few that only Major obsessives will remember. There is also a short section on where the series came from and where it went next. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia and its cited sources before publishing. Play it, share your score, and find out whether your teammates were paying attention or just baiting.
30 of 70 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which studio co-developed Counter-Strike: Global Offensive with Valve, having begun by porting its predecessor?
Hidden Path Entertainment
The console port of Counter-Strike: Source grew into a full sequel once Valve saw the opportunity.
Q 02In which month and year was CS:GO first released for Windows, OS X, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360?
August 2012
The Linux version did not arrive until September 2014, and cross-platform play between PC and consoles was dropped so the PC version could be updated freely.
Q 03How many official game modes did CS:GO have?
Nine
They were Competitive, Casual, Deathmatch, Arms Race, Demolition, Wingman, Flying Scoutsman, Retakes and Danger Zone.
Q 04A full CS:GO Competitive match is a best-of how many rounds?
30
Wingman, the two-on-two mode, runs over just sixteen rounds.
Q 05CS:GO's Competitive skill ranks were based on which rating system?
Glicko
Early reviewers complained the ranking felt ineffective when players of wildly different skill were mixed together at launch.
Q 06Which mode equips everyone with only an SSG 08 and a knife on a low-gravity map?
Flying Scoutsman
The SSG 08 is the rifle players informally call the Scout.
Q 07In Retakes mode, how many Terrorists defend the planted bomb against four Counter-Terrorists?
Three
Players pick a loadout card at the start of each round instead of buying weapons.
Q 08Which new CS:GO equipment delivers a one-shot close-range kill with an electric charge?
The taser (Zeus x27)
The incendiary grenade was the other addition the series had not seen before.
Q 09Which popular community mod has players complete obstacle courses with advanced strafing and jumping?
Kreedz Climbing
The PC version supports private dedicated servers that can be heavily modified beyond the base modes.
Q 10What was the name of the August 2013 update that introduced weapon skins and cases to CS:GO?
Arms Deal
The skin economy it created is widely seen as the update that pushed the game's player count past every earlier Counter-Strike.
Q 11Which purchasable events, accessed via passes, gave players objectives and an upgradeable coin?
Operations
Operation maps are community made, so some of the revenue goes to the map designers.
Q 12What did the October 2014 update add that plays the round MVP's own soundtrack for everyone?
Music kits
Kits can be borrowed, sold and traded on the Steam Community Market.
Q 13Which classic map was remade and re-released in February 2016 as part of Operation Wildfire?
Nuke
Valve said the goals were to balance the map and make it more aesthetically pleasing.
Q 21CS:GO source code leaked in April 2020 alongside the code for which other Valve game?
Team Fortress 2
Valve confirmed the leak was genuine but said current builds were not at risk.
Q 22How much per month did the "CS:GO 360 Stats" subscription cost when it launched in May 2021?
$0.99
Players pointed out that free third-party sites offered similar stats.
Q 23In 2019 Valve made new keys untradeable after concluding key trading was being used for what?
Money laundering by fraud networks
Valve said "nearly all" key purchases that ended up traded on the marketplace were fraud-sourced.
Q 14In April 2016 Prime matchmaking launched. What did a player need to link to their account to take part?
A verified phone number
The aim was to keep legitimate players away from cheaters and from high-skill players on alternate accounts, known as smurfing.
Q 15In October 2016 consumable "graffiti" items replaced which older customisable feature?
Sprays
Glove skins were added a month later.
Q 16Which publisher released a censored version of CS:GO in mainland China in September 2017?
Perfect World
Skulls were censored and the hammer and sickle was removed from Cache and Train.
Q 17What was CS:GO's hidden matchmaking score, introduced in November 2017, called?
Trust Factor
Valve never lets players see their score or the full list of what goes into it.
Q 18In which month and year did CS:GO become fully free to play?
December 2018
Anyone who had already bought the game was upgraded to Prime status automatically.
Q 19What was the name of the battle-royale mode added to CS:GO in late 2018?
Danger Zone
The same update replaced the old Scaleform interface with the Panorama UI.
Q 20Operation Shattered Web (November 2019) was notable for introducing what to CS:GO?
New character models and a battle pass
Operation Broken Fang followed in December 2020 with the first cinematic trailer since launch.
Q 24In July 2018 Valve disabled case opening in which two countries over their gambling laws?
Belgium and the Netherlands
Two lawsuits over skin gambling sites had already been filed against Valve in 2016.
Q 25In the 2014 match-fixing scandal, iBUYPOWER deliberately lost to which team?
NetCodeGuides.com
Seven players were permanently banned from Majors, though other organisers later let them compete.
Q 26Which iBUYPOWER player escaped the Major ban because he took no payment, and later won a Major?
Skadoodle
The others' bans effectively ended the careers of two of North America's best in-game leaders.
Q 27The 2020 coaching scandal involved coaches exploiting a bug to do what?
See parts of the map they should not have
The Esports Integrity Commission said almost 100 coaches would be sanctioned.
Q 28CS:GO set a record of how many concurrent players in March 2023?
1.4 million
The previous record of 1.3 million had been set in April 2020 during the pandemic.
Q 29The first significant TV rights deal for CS:GO put the ELEAGUE Major 2017 on which US cable network?
TBS
Turner followed up with Esports 101: CSGO and a docu-series in 2018.
Q 30CS:GO won a fan-voted eSports title-of-the-year prize at which ceremony in 2015?
The Game Awards
It was nominated for Best Esports Game at the same show in 2017 and 2019 to 2022.