Why is Counter Strike Source suddenly getting a lot of new players?

Counter Strike Source is one of the most iconic first-person shooters of all time. The game is known for its tactical gameplay and iconic map designs, which laid the foundation for many modern competitive shooters. However, as the years passed and newer titles like CS:GO and eventually Counter-Strike 2 took over, the player base slowly faded. After all, it's over two decades old.

However, the game has suddenly seen a massive surge in player count on Steam, peaking at over 50,000 concurrent players in July 2025, which might surprise a lot of people. While it's hard to determine the exact reason, the sudden rise is likely due to the recent Garry's Mod update or a large number of bot-filled servers with unclear motives.

On that note, here are the possible reasons behind this unexpected spike in the player count.

Note: Some aspects of this article contain personal and subjective opinions of the writer.

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Why is Counter Strike Source gaining players again?

To start with, a big factor could simply be nostalgia. Many old-school players might be returning just to relive the golden days of the classic Counter-Strike gameplay. But the nostalgia couldn't be the sole reason behind the spike; there's a lot to uncover here.

Counter Strike Source player stats (Image via SteamDB)

In a recent update, Facepunch announced that most of the Counter Strike Source and Half-Life 2 assets are now included by default in Garry’s Mod. This means players no longer need to buy CS Source to play most GMod community maps.

While Garry’s Mod itself didn’t see a major increase in players, according to the SteamDB Charts, CS:Source’s numbers began climbing the same day this update went live, that is, July 23, 2025. This indicates that the GMod update also contributed to the surge in Source's popularity.

Meanwhile, players on Reddit began discussing something that clears up all the doubts. On r/CounterStrike, a user asked why so many players have started playing Source lately, to which a user replied with an attached screenshot that most of the servers are actually full of bots, mostly hosted in Russian servers under the same name.

These bot-run servers are mostly full, and while they inflate the player count, it is difficult to explain why they're even running in the first place. There's no clear benefit by inflating the Counter Strike Source servers with bots, as they don't even offer weekly drops that you can sell or trade, like Counter-Strike 2 skins.

The reason why the theory of bot accounts seems more believable is that while the player count is rising really fast, the number of new followers and reviews on Steam is climbing significantly slower.

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That's all we know about the Counter Strike Source player count spike for now. Perhaps, in the coming weeks, more details will surface about what's really going on with this game.

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Edited by Ashmita Bhatt