Counter-Strike 2 is a highly complex game, boasting a plethora of advanced movement and gunplay mechanics that set it apart from other titles in the FPS genre. At the same time, the complexity of CS2 also makes it a challenging game to get into as a new player.
Unlike most other competitive shooters on the internet, CS2 has a prominently high skill floor which can often be intimidating to new players in the genre. For the same reason, hopping onto competitive games with little to no experience might not be a good idea for most players.
If you feel like you’re not ready for the competitive grind of Counter-Strike 2, then your best bet is to test your marksmanship skills in bot games and see if you can take them down before fighting against real players.
While setting up bot games and switching bot difficulty used to be quite intuitive in CS:GO, it’s not as easy since the upgrade to CS2.
How to Change Bot Difficulty in CS2
Back in the CS:GO days, players were able to set bot difficulty before loading into a practice game. However, that isn’t the case anymore.
To change bot difficulty in CS2, you’ll have to launch a practice game first. To start a bot game in CS2, follow these steps:
- Launch CS2.
- From the main menu. hit ‘Play’
- Click on ‘Practice’
- Pick your preferred map.
After selecting the map of your choice, you’ll be loaded into a practice game with bots. Now, all you need to do is open your console by pressing the tilde (~) key on your keyboard and type ‘bot_difficulty X’, replacing X with a number between 0 and 5.
For instance, typing in ‘bot_difficulty 0’ will spawn the least difficult bots while going for ‘bot_difficulty 5’ will make them much more challenging.
Once done, restart the server by typing ‘mp_restartgame 1’ in your console, and you should be good to go.
