Counter-Strike: Global Offensive features a main game mode with the premise of bomb defusal or explosion. The Terrorist side’s primary objective is to either eliminate all their opponents or successfully plant the bomb on either site and not have it defused before the clock reaches zero. The Counter-Terrorists, on the other hand, have the duty of preventing the bomb from being planted in the first place or defusing the bomb in a successful site retake.
Matches are played with a set number of rounds needed by either side to claim an outright victory, and if the maximum rounds have been reached and both teams have the same score, the game either ends in a draw or goes into an overtime period until someone eventually wins.
How Many Rounds Are In CS:GO?
Throughout the entire lifespan of CS:GO, the game had always been played under the rule “MR15” which stands for Max Round 15. The meaning of this is that each side will play a maximum of 15 rounds before needing to swap, either from Terrorist to Counter-Terrorist or vice versa. If a team won all 15 rounds straight, it would mean that they could theoretically secure the entire match on the opening pistol round after swapping sides since the final score goal in CS:GO is 16.
Under MR15, each normal bomb defusal scenario game of CS:GO would play at least 16 rounds under the normal count, with a maximum of 30 after 15 rounds have been played on each side. Under normal matchmaking rules, the game will end in a draw when the final score reaches 15-15. In competition play and under the rules of third-party applications such as FACEIT, a 15-15 draw would not necessarily mean the game would end as overtime will be played. In overtime, three rounds will be played per side until someone comes out victorious. This would continue on for an indefinite number of overtime periods until one team eventually wins four rounds in a single overtime.
This was the norm for 11 years until Global Offensive’s successor, Counter-Strike 2, was announced in 2023. MR15 was one of the biggest changes from the older Counter-Strike 1.6 title, which adopted an “MR12” format, meaning the maximum rounds in a single half would be three less than in CS:GO.
Why is CS2 13 Rounds?
Counter-Strike 2 went back to the original MR12 format that Counter-Strike 1.6 used to have, making games significantly shorter than CS:GO. In CS2, a team only needs to win 13 rounds in order to claim their victory in the match – three lower than Global Offensive’s 16. Though the game’s developers did not necessarily state their reasons for lowering the maximum rounds, a few factors may have come into play.
Firstly, the match length of a 13-round game would be significantly lowered by at least around ten minutes or even longer depending on how close both teams are. This significantly affects not only the professional scene but also casual players who, arguably, don’t have as much time to complete multiple full matches in their day. Next is the goal of having more exciting matches since there would be less opportunities to prolong a game and possibly create a comeback. Losing a round or two would have more negative consequences under MR12 compared to MR15. Finally, it could have been implemented as a nod to CS 1.6 where teams won after getting to 13 rounds first, as CS2 was marketed as a fresh start and replacement to CS:GO.