Did you know Counter-Strike 2 records replays of your matches? You can download and watch all the best action from your CS2 matches. Watching such replays can give you valuable insight into how you and other players played during a match. Counter-Strike 2 also has a better replay feature than the original CSGO, which includes numerous controls for viewing the action. This is how you can watch CS2 replays for your Counter-Strike 2 matches.
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How Prime Players Can Download and Watch CS2 Match Replays
Counter-Strike 2 Prime players can download and watch CS2 replays with the in-game theater. This gives players who’ve stumped up for CS2 Prime a much more straightforward way to watch match replays. Prime players can download and watch CS2 replays for ranked matches as follows.
- Start the Counter-Strike 2 game.
- Click the TV button near the top-left corner of Counter-Strike 2’s title screen to view your match history.
- Next, select a match to download a match replay for.
- Click Download for the selected match.
The Download option in CS2
- Wait for the game to download the replay.
- Click Watch to start the CS2 replay.
How to Download and Watch CS2 Replays for Non-Ranked Games
Counter-Strike 2’s theater mode feature does not save match histories for non-ranked competitive games. All players who only play with the freely available CS2 version must download replays from the Steam site. Aside from that, you’ll also need to extract the downloaded replay file to the Counter-Strike 2 folder and play it with the game’s debug console. This is how you can download and watch CS2 replays.
- First, download and install 7-Zip from this page on the software’s website. You’ll need that software for the required file extraction.
- Next, log in to this Steam page to view your CS2 scrimmage match history. Our guide to viewing your CS2 match history provides full step-by-step instructions for how you can do that.
- Click the Download Replay button for a match on the Scrimmage or Prime tabs.
The Scrimmage Matches tab
- Press the Windows logo + E keyboard shortcut for accessing Explorer to bring up this folder location: Program FilesSteamsteamappscommonCounter-Strike Global Offensivegamecsgo.
- Right-click anywhere inside the csgo folder and select New > Folder.
- Enter replays to be the new folder’s name.
A user-created replays folder
- Open the 7-Zip software.
- Next, navigate to the folder that contains the downloaded dem.bz2 replay file in 7-Zip.
- Select the replay dem.bz2 file and click Extract.
The Extract button
- Click the … button to select a folder path to extract the file to.
- Next, select the checkbox beneath the extract to box.
- Input Extracted Replay.dem in the text box, as shown below.
The Extract window and settings
- Click OK to extract the file.
- Open the folder you extracted the archive to and double-click the Extracted Replay.dem folder.
- Right-click the file in the Extracted Replay.dem folder to select Rename.
- Input 1 to be the new file’s name. Or enter any other file name of preference.
- Move the 1.dem file into the Program FilesSteamsteamappscommonCounter-Strike Global Offensivegamecsgoreplays folder by dragging and dropping it there.
The 1.dem file
- Launch Steam and click Counter-Strike 2’s play button.
- Enable the debug console as instructed in this Counter-Strike 2 command guide.
- Press the ` key to activate the console.
- Input playdemo replays/1.dem into the console and press Enter to start the CS2 replay.
The command console in Counter-Strike 2
- The Counter-Strike 2 match replay will load and start playing automatically. Press the ` key again to remove the console window.
You may not see download options for all Counter-Strike 2 matches in your history. This is because the game only saves replays for a limited time. So, don’t delay downloading replay files for matches you want to watch again.
How to Control Replay Playback With the Demo UI
When the replay (or demo) begins, it may start at another player. Press the left or right mouse button to flick between players until you see yourself in action. CS2 replays enable you to switch between all 10 players in matches.
Pressing G switches between the cursor and mouse camera control. You can rotate the camera angle with the mouse when you’ve activated mouse cursor control. Pressing the Space key changes the camera perspective.
A rotated camera angle for match replay
You’ll see the Demo UI playback controls at the bottom of the video (pressing Shift + F2 activates and removes them). Click the pause button on the left side of the controls to freeze the playback when needed. To slow down or increase the playback speed, click the ¼x, ½x, 1x, 2x, 4x, and 8x options. Clicking End Playback stops the Counter-Strike 2 match replay.
The Demo UI replay playback controls
So, you don’t need to record Counter-Strike 2 matches with the Windows Game Bar to view CS2 replays. Instead, download the replay file as covered above. You can then watch all the enthralling blasting action in your matches from unique viewing perspectives.
