When I reached out to Hidden Path to talk about CS:GO’s origins, Pobst shed light on an the biggest challenge that CS:GO faced before release: how to buy CS:GO skin unify the deeply entrenched Source and CS 1.6 communities under a single game. “Initially we started working with the Valve folks to bring CS:S to console. The project grew over time to become something much larger because the folks at Valve were really interested in exploring if there was anything that could be done to try to bring together the two existing groups of CS players,” said Pobst.

Hidden Path and Valve faced a daunting task: making everyone happy. Appeasing not one, but two communities who are resistant to change is difficult enough without also having to woo people who didn’t grow up on Counter-Strike. “There were players who felt that CS 1.6 was a superior experience for their play style and there were other players who felt like CS:S was the best game for their play style,” says Pobst. “Sadly those two groups were very segmented and didn’t play together. We started having a lot of discussions with Valve about what a product might look like—if it was even possible—that would become the favorite version of Counter-Strike for both existing player groups as well as for new players. And that was the main design focus behind most every decision that went into the development of CS:GO.”