CS2 and CS 1.6 servers: AVP, HVH, DM and other game modes

Everything is simple here: a full-fledged five is assembled, most often gamers play, giving their best, and cards are chosen through a ban and a rush. Almost always, anti-cheat and rating are connected in such cards, so each match is closer to a tournament match than to an evening warm-up. In CS2, these are often Premier or regular matchmaking and third-party platforms like FACEIT, as well as Pro/Public and mix servers on various platforms for already assembled lineups. In CS 1.6, the same thing is called Mix or CW – I put together a team, found an opponent and played like an adult, but without any public fuss.

The public is the very "Counter" in its most familiar form. You log on to the server, choose a side, and immediately find yourself in the round: you plant or detonate a bomb, or you go to rescue the hostages. There are usually more people here than on the official servers, the rules are simpler and more interesting, and the maps are still the same, but there are more classics – Dust2, Inferno, Mirage and others. In CS 1.6, it is the publics that still keep the main online. In CS2, the same format migrated to community servers and to large networks like Cybershoke, where skins, VIP and a ranking system are added to the basic gameplay. The essence of this does not change – you go in, choose a team and you play.

Deathmatch is designed for those who want to upgrade their scope and not mess with the economy. There are no rounds in the usual sense: if you kill, you play on, and if you die, you're back in battle a second later. The pace is high, there is a lot of practice.

Some servers are played in teams, while others include free-for-all, where everyone is on their own. Sometimes the rules are narrowed down to the limit – only headshots, only pistols, or a separate configuration for AWP. In CS 1.6, this format has long been known as CSDM, and in CS2, deathmatch remains the fastest way to warm up before rating.

These modes were invented not for the sake of fun, but for the sake of spot training. There is already a bomb on Retake, and special forces need to recapture the site while the terrorists hold their position. The rounds are short, the pressure is constant, and competent handling of grenades and timings comes to the fore.

Execute is designed in a mirror way – here they work out how to access the tape: how to push the site with a bundle, where to throw the utility and at what moment to break in. In CS2, both formats are very live on community servers. There are fewer direct analogues in CS 1.6, but aim and practice platforms partially cover a similar task.

Aim servers and arenas are chosen by those for whom dueling is more important than big tactics. You constantly get into short shootouts where everything is decided by sight, peek, and reaction, rather than rotating through the entire map.

Arena 1v1 and aim platforms with skins and familiar commands like are especially popular in CS2!ws. In CS 1.6, the same audience has been sitting on AIM and knife-only servers for years. The format is extremely honest – either you got it or you didn't.

AWP-only The whole game is built around AVP here. The arsenal is stripped down, the cards are matched to sniper duels – awp_lego, awp_india and the like – and sometimes bhop is mixed in with it. This is where those who need a sniper's pace indiscriminately from machine guns every round come.

The format is available in both CS2 and CS 1.6, but historically there have been a lot of AWP servers in the classics, and their audience is still stable.

In GunGame, you don't need to save up for a cannon – the weapon changes itself after each kill. The further up the ladder you get, the closer you get to the finish line, and the winner is usually the one who goes through the entire chain first and closes it with a knife.

Because of this, the match turns out to be fast and fair: there is no long-term economy, but there is constant progress. The mode lives in both versions, although there is noticeably less of it on the CS2 community than on public or retake.

In these modes, Counter-Strike almost ceases to be a shooter and turns into a discipline about movement. On Surf, you slide along the sloping surfaces of special maps, on KZ and Climb you go through jump routes for time, and Bhop is based on a series of jumps and the ability not to lose speed.

Such servers have their own leaderboards, difficulty ranges, and isolated communities that almost do not overlap with the usual public. In CS2, full-fledged timer servers run networks like Cybershoke and RunAway, and in CS 1.6, surf, jump, and kz schools have long been considered legendary.

Deathrun is a parkour race with traps. One player or a small group controls the mechanisms on the map, while the rest try to complete the route and avoid being hit. Whoever gets to the finish line or manages to get the "trigger" takes the round.

There is no tactical CS here at all – everything is based on reaction, route memory and a healthy amount of harmfulness. The format is more ingrained in CS 1.6, but it can also be found in CS2.

Jailbreak is a prison–themed role-playing game. Special forces play as guards, and terrorists become prisoners. The guards give orders, and the prisoners either obey, or look for a moment to riot, escape, or plant a bomb – it all depends on the rules of a particular server.

It's not the rating or the perfect aim that decides here, but the atmosphere, discipline, and live moderation. Jailbreak has long been a classic in CS 1.6, and CS2 also has a mode, but its audience is noticeably more modest.

Hide and Seek (HNS) In Hide and Seek, one side hides, the other searches. The terrorists are stalling until the end of the round, and the counter–terrorists must find them and "catch" them - most often exclusively with a knife, so that an ordinary shootout almost does not decide the outcome.

The whole game is based on movement, working with sound and knowing the map. In CS 1.6, HNS is easy to find in any decent monitoring, in CS2 the format is less common, but the idea has not gone away.

Zombie modes have long been divided into several branches. In Zombie Plague and the regular Zombie Mod, some of the players are infected: people fight back, zombies try to spread the infection to the whole team. On many servers, classes, leveling, and an in-game store are added to this.

Zombie Escape is designed differently – people run through the story map to the evacuation point, and the zombies are chasing them. The winner is not the one who scored the most frags, but the one who, together with the team, knew the route and reached the finish line. In CS 1.6, zombie fashion remains one of the main pillars of online, and in CS2, ZE and zombie servers are also alive, just not as massive as public or retake.

Warcraft / RPG Mods (mostly CS 1.6) Warcraft servers take a regular Counter-Strike and overlay races, levels, and abilities on top of it in the spirit of Warcraft III. Between rounds, you level up, unlock skills and ultimates, and the match no longer feels like a pure shooter, but like a hybrid with an RPG.

In CS 1.6, War3FT still holds a loyal audience. There are almost no mass analogues left in CS2 – other custom formats have gone there.

Wingman is the official 2v2 format on stripped–down maps. The match is shorter and quieter than the big public, but it still feels closer to the "real" Counter-Strike than the usual deathmatch.

Other short formats like pistol retake and mini-games live nearby in the community. They help out when you want to go not for a long session, but literally for one evening.