An ambitious Counter-Strike mod to emulate the OG 1.6 experience in Global Offensive has been rejected by Valve after 8 years of development
The authors of the long-in-development Classic Offensive mod for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive have shared a message to Twitter that it has been rejected from release on Steam and its app retired after eight years of development. I have sent a request for comment from Valve and will update this story if I hear back, but the rejection may be due to Source engine workarounds used by the team when creating the mod.
In a post on December 29, the Classic Offensive team wrote that they had submitted a build of the mod for review in October, and that they were still waiting to hear from Steamworks despite a usual turnaround of three to five business days. On January 11, the Classic Offensive team shared a longform message stating that Valve «retired our app without any reason explained. This is devastating as we've worked on the project for almost eight years.»
pic.twitter.com/7Z07uD8MqqJanuary 11, 2025
Classic Offensive was approved by Steam's now-defunct Greenlight program in 2017, with mod team leader ZooL indicating that he was experimenting with CSGO modding as early as 2015—we first reported on the project back in 2016. Classic Offensive was positioned as a sort of CS 1.6 revival built in the latest iteration of the Source engine—Counter-Strike's different versions command a similar schismatic devotion to the various entries of the Super Smash Bros. series—with art, sound effects, animations, and mechanics that all hewed closer to the GoldSrc era of Counter-Strike, but touched up with modern production values and features. Classic Offensive was also positioned by its creators as a more pure, stripped down alternative to the cosmetic and microtransaction-laden CSGO.
The Classic Offensive team stated that it did not use leaked Source engine code, despite having the opportunity to do so, in order to keep things above board. The Classic Offensive team also said that they had been in contact with developers at Valve who were interested in the project, and that they
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