One of the most important parts of any shooter is playing with friends. Whether it’s to practice your aim or to just hang out and have fun, playing with a group of friends can make the experience much more enjoyable. With Valve’s latest installment in the Counter-Strike series, Counter-Strike 2 (CS2), you can now invite your friends to play custom matches with tournament rules in a private custom lobby. Here’s how to do it.
The first step is creating a private match. You can do this by opening the game menu and selecting the Matchmaking tab. Then, select the private matchmaking option and choose a map and game mode. Once you’ve done this, you and your friends can begin the match. Here is step by step how to create a custom lobby in Counter-Strike 2:
- To start a private match in the game, head to the Matchmaking tab in the Play menu. Look for the “Private Matchmaking” option within that tab. It will allow you to create a private game and play with your friends or chosen players.
- If you’re a new player or have recently created a new profile in CS2, some options in the game are greyed out. This is because you need to play a certain number of games before you can access certain features like Private lobby. These games are typically played in casual mode, which is a more relaxed version of the game. Once you’ve played enough games, you’ll be able to enjoy all the features that CS2 has to offer.
- After you unlock Private Matchmaking, you can easily invite your Steam friends to join you by pressing “Shift + Tab”. You can also share a special code or enter a code your friend gave to join their lobby. This way, you can play games with your friends without having to join a public matchmaking pool.
- After everybody gets together in the waiting area, you can choose the game map, set the game rules, and pick other settings before clicking on “Go” to begin the game.
Visit Steam Workshop For More Rules and Custom Maps
If you want to add more rules to your CS2 match, you can do so by using the Steam Workshop. This is a hub for player-created content and can include everything from competitive maps that mimic the style and rules of official CS2 maps to completely unique creations that introduce new game modes, themes, and rules.
- Once you’ve downloaded a custom Workshop Map, go to the following directory “Steam\steamapps\common\Counter-Strike Global Offensive\game\csgo\maps” or “Steam\steamapps\common\Counter-Strike 2\game\cs2\maps”
- Paste the file you downloaded from Steam Workshop here, and then launch CS2.
- You can load the new custom map into CS2 by entering the command “map %map_name%” at the console. In the “name” section, you must type the map name. (Check out CS2 console commands)
- Then just hit “Enter” to load the map.
You can also find these maps in the CS2 maps directory by navigating to “Play > Workshop Maps.”
