Look, sometimes words just get in the way. So before I start waffling, here’s a video—spotted by GamesRadar (opens in new tab)—of one of the most buck wild strokes of luck I’ve ever seen happen in a videogame.
AWP 5k – 1 bullet from r/GlobalOffensive
That’s wild, right? Tell me that’s not wild. If you’re not sure what you just watched, here’s a breakdown: A CS:GO player named sp1cay managed to pull off a one-in-a-million shot with the AWP sniper rifle, managing to kill every single enemy player on the opposing team—who had all lined up in just the right way—with one bullet, winning the game with a single squeeze of the trigger.
It’s a bit like pulling off the water bottle flip challenge on your first go, except much less likely, way cooler, and entirely accidental. So not too much like the water bottle thing, I guess.
It’s tempting to wonder if the clip is part of a staged stunt, but signs point to no. For one thing, the flabbergasted reaction of the winning team when sp1cay pulls the trigger seems entirely genuine, as if they truly can’t believe what they just saw either. Plus, the Counter-Strike community seems to be taking this one seriously. When sp1cay posted the clip on Reddit (opens in new tab)—innocently asking “Is this rare?”—they were showered with plaudits.
“Mfing asking if it’s rare,” said a Reddit user named DarkandDarkerDev (opens in new tab), “Like one in fucking billions”. “You are one of probably a two-digit number of people who have ever done this so yes it is rare,” said another user named mrhunden (opens in new tab). Some veteran players remarked that they’d only seen something like it happen once before in their time playing the game. At time of writing, the video has nearly 20,000 upvotes and a bristling collection of indecipherable Reddit awards.
I’m not a CS:GO player myself, so I’m relying on testimony from other players on this one, but plenty of users in the CS:GO subreddit have pointed out that the sniper shot alone wouldn’t have been enough to wipe out all five enemy players. It’s only because sp1cay and his teammate hurled a couple of grenades, which grazed some of the enemy players and chipped a bit of their health away, that the one bullet was able to kill every single member of the opposing team.
So, if it wasn’t already unlikely enough that sp1cay’s opponents would line up just right for him to take them all out at once, even that wouldn’t have been enough if they hadn’t also been caught in the blast radius of those grenades.
Of course, incredible trick shots aren’t the only reason Counter-Strike is in the news at the moment. Valve recently dropped a surprise announcement for Counter-Strike 2 (opens in new tab), declaring that the next instalment of one of the most popular PC games ever is coming soon, for free, and that all your CS:GO stuff would carry over. Unless you’re a cheater (opens in new tab), that is.
