Valve halts Counter-Strike: Classic Offensive release

The release of Counter-Strike: Classic Offensive (CSCO) has been delayed after Valve contacted the development team with concerns about the mod's compliance with their guidelines. The announcement came via CSCO's official X account just one day before the anticipated Wednesday launch.

"We were contacted by Valve this morning. They have reached out to us with concerns that our mod may no longer be compliant with their guidelines and the Steam Subscriber Agreement," the CSCO team stated. "In light of these concerns, we are auditing the current build of the mod to ensure nothing in it is in violation of those guidelines."

This sudden development comes shortly after CSCO's creator, ZooL, revealed the initial set of maps for the project. The maps unveiling had generated excitement among fans looking forward to experiencing authentic recreations of classic Counter-Strike gameplay.

This isn't the first time the project has faced challenges with Valve. Despite initially receiving approval to continue development while following Source Engine Distribution Guidelines, Valve allegedly pulled the mod's Steamworks page and removed the project from the platform without communicating with the developers. ZooL's post about this situation gained significant attention at the time.

In one of the replies, ZooL mentions that Valve issues with the project were not security related but in fact, redistribution related. This meant that Valve were worried about how the Counter-Strike: Classic Offensive project would redistribute and publish Counter-Strike: Global Offensive's vanilla game files which includes original assets, models and other intellectual property. More updates on the same shall follow as and when made public by the Counter-Strike: Classic Offensive development team.