The ability to go back and check out your previous matches is an absolute must in competitive games like CS2. It’s an integral tool that allows you to break down your performance and learn from your blunders. And how else are we supposed to relive all those epic aces and clean one-taps? Yet, amidst the game’s transition to the new engine, many players have been left wondering if the demo viewer made the cut in CS2. Let’s find out!
Can We Watch Replays/Demos In CS2?
CS2 does contain a new, furnished demo viewer that players can use to revisit their matches. However, Valve has temporarily disabled the option to download GOTV replays. This has been done to increase server capacity and allow more players to play on the standard and Premier matchmaking servers.
While it is currently unknown when the CS2 devs will re-incorporate this feature in the game, we can expect it to return as soon as December 2023, since it’s without a doubt on the devs’ priority list given its importance. However, you can still record and play your demos in-game using console commands.
How to Record And Replay Matches in CS2 Using Console Commands?
While the automatic match-recording feature is currently disabled, it shouldn’t stop you from recording and playing your matches manually using a few console commands. Here’s how you can record your demos using console commands:
- Once your CS2 match starts, press the ~ key to open the console.
- Type record [demo_name], replacing “demo_name” with any suitable name. For example, a sample command could be: record comp1
- In order to stop the recording, you can simply type stop in the command.
Now, if you want to watch your recorded demo, you can do the following:
- Open the CS2 console and type playdemo [demo_name].
- Once the demo has loaded, type in demoui in the console command to enable the UI.
How To Download CS2 Demos Using Steam?
After Valve restores this feature back into the game, you can manually download any demo from your match history on Steam by following these steps:
- Launch Steam.
- Hover your mouse cursor under your name tab and select Games.
- Find Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, and under My Game Stats, select the option for your personal game data.
- Select your preferred game mode to view your recent matches.
- Find the match whose demo you want to download and right-click on the Download GOTV Replay button under your match’s information and open it in a new tab.
- Press Ctrl + R to refresh the tab in case your download doesn’t start. Once done, you should have a zipped .dem file.
- Open Steam and go to the Library tab.
- Right-click on Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and navigate to Properties → Installed Files.
- Click on the Browse button to view your CS:GO game files.
- Navigate to game → csgo.
- Drag the previously downloaded zipped .dem file to this folder.
- Right-click on the file and select Extract Here.
- Once again, right-click on the file and select Rename.
- Copy the file’s name minus the file type. For example if the file name is 003637736172559532082_0218636276.dem, you should just copy “003637736172559532082_0218636276”.
You can also use the above method to transfer any online demo files to CS2’s installation directly as well. Nevertheless, you should now be all set up to view your demo in CS2. To do so:
- Launch CS2.
- Press the ~ key to launch the console.
- Type in playdemo <name_of_your_demo>. For example, following the previous example, we’d type “playdemo 003637736172559532082_0218636276”
Congratulations! You can now view your match replays using the new CS2 demo viewer. However, you might notice the replay (especially for the first round) is very buggy, with guns phasing through your hands and items floating around. This problem, luckily, only persists for the first few rounds and will most definitely be patched in its re-release.
For the ability to pause, fast-forward through rounds, or increase the playback speed, you can enable the UI by typing “demoui” in the console.
However, not everyone is ready to forsake recording their gameplay while they wait for Valve to launch this feature again. Therefore, you can always record your CS2 gameplay using third-party alternatives like ShadowPlay and OBS.
Final Thoughts
CS2 is still transitioning to the new Source 2 engine, which means that some features, including a functional demo viewer, remain a work in progress. However, we can luckily still use console commands to record and play demos. And with Valve dishing out updates at a fast pace, we can count on them throwing in the demo download feature in CS2 pretty soon.