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CS2 is a game that’s extremely easy to learn, yet takes a lifetime to master. If you’re completely new to the game, you’ll no doubt understand the rules of the game (plant bomb – defend bomb) rather quickly but you might even have trouble hitting your shots in the beginning. In our CS2 Guide for Beginners, we’ll teach you everything that you need to know to get started.

We don’t want to overwhelm players with information, so we’ve kept this guide limited to 3 tips that you can rather quickly apply to your own game. There’s a lot more to CS2 of course, and entire books can be written about this game and its extremely high skill ceiling, but we’ve identified the most common errors that we see low level players make. If you read and apply the information in this guide you’ll be on your way to ranking up in no time.

This guide is written for players who already know the basics (the rules, objectives, buying system, …) of the game.

1. Get your settings set up correctly
First things first: you need to make sure your game isn’t actively handicapping you, so before you dive into any competitive shooter you need to adjust the settings so that the game runs properly. This is the same for CS2.

2. Learn how to counter-strafe and stand still when shooting
One crucial difference between CS2 and more casual shooters is the fact that your gun won’t be accurate if you’re running and gunning. In CS2, you have to stand still while shooting if you want to have any hopes of actually hitting your enemies.

This means that, once you encounter an enemy, you need to come to a complete standstill before you start shooting. Since it takes a little bit of time to come to a complete stop by just releasing the movement keys, more advanced players use a technique called counter-strafing in order to stand still faster.

As a consequence of the way movement works in CS2, it’s never a good idea to move diagonally when you’re expecting to encounter an enemy, as this means you would have to press two opposing keys at the same time in order to properly counter-strafe. This is obviously much more difficult than pressing just one key.

You can practice this by going into a practice server (under ‘Play‘ -> ‘Practice‘ – ‘Competitive‘ and then enabling Infinite Ammo and Infinite Warmup on the left side of the screen; this gets you into an empty server) or by simply playing deathmatch. Learning proper counter-strafing is an absolutely crucial aspect to becoming a great CS2 player, so it’s crucial that you learn this.

Each time you press an opposing movement key after releasing your original movement key, there is a (very) brief period of time where your character will stand still according to the game’s movement mechanics. More advanced players will use counter-strafing techniques during gunfights to make themselves harder to hit, so advanced players who appear to be stutter-stepping and moving erratically might just be employing counter-strafing in their movement routines.

3. Learn the recoil patterns of the main guns
All guns in CS2 have their own recoil pattern. Once you start spraying, the gun will shoot away and your bullets won’t land exactly where your crosshair is. An example of this can be seen in the image above; the pattern of the bullets on the right is the beginning of the M4A4 spray pattern. If you want your bullets to stay centered, you need to counter the spray pattern of the gun you’re using with your mouse’s movements.