CS2 Will Not Launch or Keeps Crashing

Work down this list in order. It is arranged by how often each thing turns out to be the cause, not by how clever it sounds, so stop as soon as the game starts.

Verify the game files first

Right-click Counter-Strike 2 in your Steam library, choose Properties, then Installed Files, then Verify integrity of game files. An interrupted update is the single most common reason the game will not start, and this fixes it without a reinstall.

Clear the launch options

In the same Properties window, empty the launch options box completely and try again. Options copied from a three-year-old video are the second most common cause, and several of the ones still being recommended do nothing in CS2 except break it.

-novid -console

Those two are safe. Add nothing else until the game is starting reliably.

Update the GPU driver properly

• Download the driver from AMD or NVIDIA directly rather than through Windows Update.
• Choose a clean install when the installer offers it — an upgraded driver keeps the old broken settings.
• Reboot afterwards even if it does not ask you to.
• If a brand-new driver caused the problem, roll back one version. Launch-day drivers break CS2 regularly.

Rule out overlays and anti-cheat conflicts

Disable third-party overlays one at a time: Discord, MSI Afterburner, RivaTuner, GeForce Experience, Razer and Corsair software. Any of these can hang the game at startup, and Afterburner in particular is a repeat offender. Antivirus tools that scan the game directory during launch cause the same symptom.

Fix the loading-screen hang

If the game reaches the loading screen and stops there, delete the local shader cache — Steam rebuilds it on the next start. The first launch afterwards is slow and every launch after that is normal.

When it is the hardware

A crash to desktop after ten or twenty minutes rather than at startup is usually memory or heat rather than software. Run the game with a temperature overlay for one session; if the crash lands as the GPU peaks, the problem is cooling, and no reinstall will help.