Ever since VALORANT was released, the colorful FPS has been compared to other existing shooters — usually Counter-Strike 2. Despite Counter-Strike coming out over 20 years ago, the two games have a ton in common, making it difficult not to discuss their similarities.
While the gaming community has agreed that VALORANT and CSGO share many similar gameplay components, including round setups, maps, and strategies, one thing has continued to leave gamers torn: Which game is harder?
When VALORANT first came out, it was immediately said to be easier than Counter-Strike. At the time, people felt that CS’s simplicity compared to VALORANT’s colourful cast of ability-wielding agents meant that Counter-Strike relied more on raw mechanical skills.
Nonetheless, CS2 and VALORANT both focus on mechanical skills, map knowledge, and highly strategic team play. A lot of this revolves around the maps you play on, which are meant to create a balanced and competitive platform for both teams to be on equal footing from opposite starting points, ensuring the W is due to their skills alone, not being on a favoured side.
That said, which game is more balanced: CS2 or VALORANT? And which is easier to play?
What do the pros say?
The top FPS players have been constantly comparing which game is harder and they can’t seem to make up their mind. One of the most outspoken is Michael “shroud” Grzesiek, who has been a top level pro in both CS2 and VALORANT.
Previously, shroud said that VALORANT was easier to play back when Riot’s shooter came out, explaining that since Counter-Strike had a much higher skill ceiling. This has changed, however.
When CS2 came out, shroud said the game is much easier than VALORANT after he’d had a chance to play it professionally. His teammates at the time agreed, saying that shroud would have a difficult time switching back to VALORANT at a high level.
After hearing shroud’s take, a lot of competitive players agreed that VALORANT has more going on so it can be harder to master at the highest levels of competition. But CS2 still remains more mechanically challenging.
Tyson “TenZ” Ngo recently retired from VALORANT but has also played CS2 at a pro level. During a stream earlier in 2024, TenZ agreed that Counter-Strike is much more mechanically focused.
“There’s so much cool s— you can do with smokes. You can get kinda creative sometimes,” TenZ said. “You can unleash more of that creativity in VALORANT with certain comps or certain characters, but basically everything from a mechanical standpoint in CS2 is better, in my opinion. During my entire time in CS grinding to become a pro player, I have probably gotten running or jumping headshots less times than a single game of VALORANT.”
CS2 vs VALORANT: Comparing maps
We’re going to use exclusive Abios data gathered during the first half of 2024 from both CS2 and VALORANT esports events to determine which game is truly more balanced.
CS2 has both a Terrorist and Counter-Terrorist side. These teams both start on opposite sides of the map, clashing at a point somewhere in the centre. But some players will tell you that you have an advantage if you start on one side of the map over the other. Is that true?
This is not drastically true for CS2 in 2024. Most maps are quite balanced, with one side only winning a few more times than the other. For example, Ancient has the T side winning 49.90% and the CT side winning 50.5%, and Inferno has 49% versus 51%.
Of course, not all maps are as strikingly balanced. Anubis has CT side winning 45.5% of the time and T side wins 54.5% of matches. Similarly, Nuke is 53% versus 47%, and Overpass is 55.5% versus 44.5%. Generally, you’ll do better on these maps if your team is on the CT side, but they are still close enough that both teams have a chance if they are equally talented.
| Map | Matches Played | CT Winrate | T Winrate |
| Ancient | 1639 | 50.10% | 49.90% |
| Anubis | 1357 | 45.50% | 54.50% |
| Mirage | 1287 | 52.20% | 47.80% |
| Nuke | 1139 | 53.00% | 47.00% |
| Vertigo | 898 | 47.70% | 52.30% |
| Inferno | 879 | 49.00% | 51.00% |
| Overpass | 606 | 55.50% | 44.50% |
| Dust2 | 315 | 49.10% | 50.90% |
Now, let’s turn to VALORANT. This game is similar to CS2 except the map designs keep in mind that every agent has its own unique ability, including walls that block enemies, flashes that blind them, and intel-gathering techniques. Has that impacted VALORANT’s ability to be balanced?
Not really! In 2024, most maps were pretty evenly balanced. On Lotus, defending teams won 46.7% of the time, and attackers won 52.8% of the time. Ascent was the opposite, with defenders winning 52.8% of matches and attackers winning 46.8%. Split, Bind, Breeze, and Icebox were even closer.
| Map | Matches Played | Defending Winrate | Attacking Winrate |
| Lotus | 811 | 46.70% | 52.80% |
| Sunset | 669 | 48.80% | 50.60% |
| Ascent | 659 | 52.80% | 46.80% |
| Icebox | 609 | 48.50% | 51.40% |
| Split | 533 | 51.20% | 48.20% |
| Bind | 518 | 47.90% | 51.50% |
| Breeze | 329 | 48.90% | 50.60% |
CS2 vs. VALORANT: Comparing most-used weapons
Similar to the design of each game’s maps, CS2 and VALORANT also have quite similar weapons.
CS2’s M4A1 and AK47 are comparable to VALORANT’s Vandal, all of which are assault rifles. Unlike VALORANT, however, CS2 has different weapons for each side. The AK47 is on the T side, while the M4A1 is on the CT side. The AK47 has a higher use, kill rate, and damage output.
While assault rifles are often for charging into gunfights, snipers are for holding angles and patiently awaiting an enemy’s arrival. The CS2’s AWP is similar to VALORANT’s Operator. However, as you can see in the graph below, Operators get an average of 6 kills per match, while AWPs get 16 kills per match. This means that sniping is quite a bit more common in CS2, possibly due to how the maps are laid out or because of the strategies teams utilize. This definitely points to the claim that CS2 may take a bit more mechanical skills than VALORANT in the current meta.
VALORANT players also use the Sheriff semi-automatic revolver more than CS2 players utilize their equivalent, the Deagle. This is due to Counter-Strike 2 being more focused on sniper play and VALORANT players being more likely to find themselves in gunfights.
Despite CS2 players not utilizing shotguns as much, Counter-Strike has more varied weapon use overall. This is because CT and T side utilize different weapons. This poses the question: Are VALORANT map win rates more balanced because players use the same weapons? Or is it truly due to map design? And is it VALORANT’s ability-focused playstyle that has players using snipers less or are the maps not as designed with sniping in mind?
Counter-Strike 2 weapon stats
| Weapon | Kills | Headshots | Headshot Rate | Kills/Match |
| AK47 | 411.545 | 235.463 | 57.20% | 51 |
| M4A1 Silencer | 246.849 | 99.278 | 40.20% | 30 |
| AWP | 109.653 | 10.289 | 9.38% | 13 |
| USP Silencer | 59.014 | 49.784 | 84.40% | 7 |
| Galilar | 54.824 | 26.370 | 48.10% | 7 |
| Glock | 54.056 | 43.354 | 80.20% | 7 |
| mp9 | 42.889 | 21.589 | 50.30% | 5 |
VALORANT weapon stats
| Weapon | Kills | Headshots | Headshot Rate | Kills/Match |
| Vandal | 305.908 | 190.733 | 62.30% | 73 |
| Phantom | 69.015 | 33.017 | 47.80% | 17 |
| Ghost | 40.324 | 22.090 | 54.80% | 10 |
| Sheriff | 32.723 | 18.961 | 57.90% | 8 |
| Bulldog | 22.722 | 10.565 | 46.50% | 6 |
| Classic | 22.125 | 11.405 | 51.50% | 5 |
| Operator | 18.077 | 958 | 5.30% | 6 |
In conclusion, CS2 and VALORANT are both quite balanced but VALORANT actually comes out on top in 2024. This was also the case in 2023 back when we compared CS:GO and VALORANT.
The impact of abilities and agents in VALORANT
While Counter-Strike 2 and VALORANT share similar gunplay, economics, and map makeup, there’s one fundamental difference between the games: VALORANT features agents with their own abilities. This opens up a realm of possibilities in team composition and gameplay, as teams need to find counters to the opposing lineup.
In Counter-Strike 2, games are more predictive in a sense, as every player has the same item list to choose from. Nonetheless, you can always count on Counter-Strike 2 players to find new cheeky plays and angles to keep matches interesting.
In VALORANT, new agents come out continuously and metas can shift rapidly, meaning players need to adapt more as new agents emerge.
CS2 vs. VALORANT: Which game is tougher?
This is another comparison we discussed last year, with FPS Pro Shroud initially stating that VALORANT was easier to learn and master than CS2 but then changing his mind later when he went pro in VALORANT.
In 2024, it’s safe to say that CS2 and VALORANT are both trickier to learn in different ways. Both games take mechanical skills galore, although many will argue that CS2 requires even more. But VALORANT has the addition of learning agent abilities and how they impact the game — which agents work the best together in team comps, and which abilities are best for each map?
So, it’s still a bit difficult to really compare the two games. Both have pretty different challenges to tackle.
In the end, VALORANT and CSGO should not be compared. While the core gameplay has many similarities, the games are night and day. It’s like comparing Roblox and Minecraft, or Dota 2 and League of Legends. The games are just… different.
This is also true for watching VALORANT and Counter-Strike 2. The games play much differently, and you’ll notice a lot of variance in the gameplay’s speed and strategies. The game you choose to follow comes down to personal preference. Luckily, we cover both! If you’re looking for insightful stats on either FPS — maybe to compare shroud’s performance in both games among other useful comparisons — check out our esports data packages.
