After Counter-Strike 2‘s limited testing update rolled out this Wednesday, March 22, CS:GO‘s viewership on Twitch peaked at 852.100 people—setting a new record for 2023 and the 20th-highest peak of the game’s history on the Amazon-owned platform—according to statistics by Stream Charts.
This is because several popular streamers or professional players like Gaules, Tarik, shroud, and s1mple started broadcasting CS2 nearly as soon as it was out for limited testing. The update allowed them to play CS:GO with the game engine Source 2 for the first time and see how much the mechanics and Dust II—the only map available in CS2 thus far—have been improved compared to the predecessor.