Is CS2 shorter than CS:GO?

Jaret Anderson -

We looked at 3 million CS games - 1 million from each of CS2 Premier, CSGO Long Matches, and CSGO Short Matches - to see how the runtimes of the average game in each game mode compare. These demos are all from August/September 2023, so they reflect the most recent updates to the game.

The aspect of this that we didn't expect was how much more variable CS2 match times are than CSGO matches. If you're getting stomped in CS2, the match will end quickly (15% of matches take 20 minutes or less). If it's a close game, though, you still will get 40+ minutes of solid CS. This seems like a great way to ensure that you're spending more time playing in close games, and any lopsided games aren't dragged out too long.

A big portion of this increased uncertainty for how long a CS2 match would take comes from the optional overtime, of course. Most of the time the game ends after you've won 13 rounds, but in certain cases you may have to win 16 rounds (just like the old days :'D)

A few notes about the data

  1. Premier mode is MR12, but does have a single overtime enabled. This means that if you play a full overtime, your CS2 match will take 30 rounds just like a full game of CS:GO MM would have.
  2. Premier mode has 20 second freezetime between rounds instead of the 15 seconds you see in most CSGO gamemodes. This adds up to a little more than 1.5 extra minutes of freezetime across the average Premier game.
  3. There are more timeouts available in Premier mode. We didn't gather data on whether or not people are actually using these timeouts, but they could be another factor that can lengthen certain CS2 games.