Counter-Strike: Source

Moderate overall intensity
Highest flag: Crime & lawlessness — player commits crime
Modern/RealisticShooterStrategy

What's in it

Violence realistic
Moderate

Realistic firearm and knife combat between human counter-terrorist and terrorist teams, with blood on hits but no gore or dismemberment.

Crime & lawlessness player commits crime
Moderate

As the Terrorist team, players plant explosives and guard hostages within the round objectives; the acts are framed as game goals, not shown against helpless innocents.

Dark themes mild
Low

The setting is a counter-terrorism scenario built around bomb-planting and hostage-rescue objectives, presented abstractly as competitive team play.

Who can reach your kid

Voice chatChat with strangersUser-created content

What it is

Counter-Strike: Source is a competitive online first-person shooter that pits a Counter-Terrorist team against a Terrorist team across short objective-based rounds, most commonly planting or defusing a bomb, or rescuing hostages. Players buy realistic firearms with money earned from kills and objectives, and eliminated players sit out until the next round. Combat is realistic gunfire with blood effects but no gore or dismemberment. The core draw is player-versus-player teamwork and aim skill. It is played on community-run servers where in-game voice and text chat with strangers is common; those unmoderated servers can carry crude or hostile talk, and player-run mods and custom maps (including some named for casino or adult themes) exist outside the base game.

How it's framed

The game frames its violence as balanced team-versus-team competition rather than a story; the terrorism setting is a backdrop for match objectives, and neither side is portrayed with narrative approval or condemnation. Success is measured purely by round wins and marksmanship.

Details

Developer
Valve
Publisher
Valve
Released
Nov 1, 2004
Metacritic 88critic score (third-party) · out of 100

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