Counter-Strike 2 vs. VALORANT is a debate as old as, well, VALORANT. When Riot Games released its take on the FPS genre in 2020, it shook up the FPS scene almost instantly, with long-time CS2 veterans switching over and the two titles facing constant comparisons. Which one is harder? Which one is more fun to watch?
Well, we’re going to add to that debate because 2025 has been an insane year for both CS2 and VALORANT so far. But our Abios spin is as follows: Which game had the most views?
BLAST.tv Austin Major vs. VCT Masters Toronto
June was a clash of the titans. CS2 and VALORANT had major tournaments overlapping for the first time. This gave us a much better comparison of the two FPS esports as fans wondered which one would receive the highest viewership when two matches were going at once. In fact, both tournaments even had a Grand Final on June 22, 2025.
It should be noted that both games, while similar in some gameplay elements, have different esports ecosystems. CS2 has an open ecosystem that allows organizations to fight for qualification to Tier 1 events, while VALORANT uses a franchise model where only certain teams participate in its regional leagues. CS2 also has a lot more tournaments throughout the year while VALORANT maintains a more structured and focused circuit, which can lead to varying viewership.
However, the two tournaments overlapping in the first half of 2025 gave us a great glimpse into the scale of both games’ popularity and fanbases. As expected, both Grand Finals had the events’ peak viewership. The Austin Major’s Grand Final (CS2) had a 1.8 million peak viewership while the Masters Toronto’s Grand Final (Valorant) saw approximately 1.1 million peak viewers.
To provide some context, the Austin Major was a massive event for the CS2 scene. It was the first Major on American soil in over eight years, as BLAST.tv looked to create a larger audience in North America to harken back to the early days of Counter-Strike’s underground Texas scene. As a result, the Austin Major has the highest peak viewership in CS2 history.
But if we account for all of the larger tournaments in 2025 so far, Counter-Strike 2 still wins. Peak viewership for IEM Katowice was 1.3 million and BLAST Rivals Spring 2025 saw just over one million. On the other hand, the most-watched VALORANT tournaments aside from Toronto were Masters Bangkok at 1.3 million and VCT Americas Kickoff at 554,000.
Will VALORANT Topple Counter-Strike 2 In the Second Half of 2025?
Just like a match of VALORANT or CS2, there’s always a possibility of a reverse sweep in later rounds. VALORANT Champions in September will be the largest annual event for Riot’s shooter, a culmination of the entire season sure to draw huge fanfare. Counter-Strike 2 has IEM Cologne 2025 (currently ongoing) alongside a number of other Majors.
There could always be an upset, but it appears that Counter-Strike 2 has the upper hand on the newer shooter. The reason? Most likely, Counter-Strike has built up a larger fanbase over its decades of competitions. The teams are well established and the pros are icons in the space. The gameplay is straightforward and easy to follow — it’s clear when a team makes a good play or a pro takes a good shot.
VALORANT has the addition of agents (playable characters with distinct roles and personalities), which can make for more interesting team compositions and strategies, but it also makes for a more complex game to understand. There is also greater map variety, but FPS fans perhaps don’t want the meta to keep changing, enjoying a level of familiarity with the playing field and appreciating how pro players navigate and overcome existing strategies.
The pro players in VALORANT are newer faces for esports fans (aside from the CS veterans who switched over), so their stories may not be as long and their rivalries less well established. However, VALORANT is proving that it can keep up with CS2 even at just a few years old. It is holding its own, and could definitely pull an upset.
