A CS2 demo is a .dem file that records a match, so the game can replay it from any player's point of view. Demos of your recent matchmaking games are kept on Valve's Counter-Strike Match Sharing servers for a limited time and downloaded from the Watch menu. This guide covers downloading them, the playback bar after the October 14, 2026 update, TrueView and the console commands.
How to download a match demo
Click the TV icon at the top left of the main menu (its tooltip reads "Watch matches and tournaments") and open the Your Matches tab. Pick a match and press the download button. Since October 14, 2026, a progress bar tracks the download, and once it finishes you can start the match from the same screen.
The game won't start a second match download while another is still pending. If the match page reports "Download Incomplete", you get the scoreboard but can't watch the match. Hotspawn says this can happen right after a match ends: delete the local demo files from the match page, wait a few minutes and try again.
Demos don't stay on the servers forever. An expired match shows that it "is no longer available for download", and Hotspawn notes there's no way to get it back, so download the games you want to keep soon after playing them.
Where demo files are saved and how playdemo works
Downloaded matches go to the replays folder of the game install, by default C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Counter-Strike Global Offensive\game\csgo\replays, with file names starting match730_. A demo from elsewhere, such as a file a teammate sends you, goes one level up in game\csgo.
To play one, type playdemo followed by the file name in the developer console; if you haven't set the console up yet, the console commands guide shows how. demoui brings the playback controls back if they're hidden.
Some demos from other game versions won't load and fail with "Demo file is incompatible with this game version." Since September 9, 2026, chat in demos is also encrypted as it was in CS:GO: team chat can't be read in playback, and all chat appears only when the demo is played from the in-game Watch menu.
The playback bar after the October 2026 update
The bar along the bottom of the screen has play and pause, a speed slider from 0.1x to 4x, the time and tick (the demo's position counted in ticks), 15-second jumps back and forward, and buttons for the previous and next round. Arrows and a player list pick whose view you follow, and another button jumps to the next kill by anyone.
The camera button cycles through first person, Chase Cam and Free Cam. Since the October 14, 2026 update, you aim the camera by clicking and dragging, and the free and chase cameras keep working while the demo is paused.
Kills and deaths show up as markers on the timeline. The highlights button cuts playback down to the kills and deaths of the player you're spectating, starting six seconds before each one and running two seconds past it. On the match page, selecting a player on the scoreboard points the Watch Highlights and Watch Lowlights buttons at them.
The settings button holds the TrueView switches and X-ray, which outlines players and shows their names through walls; X toggles it by default. A demo pauses when it reaches the end instead of returning you to the main menu. If X-ray leaves you suspicious of an opponent, the CS2 anti-cheat guide explains what VAC and Overwatch do about cheaters.
TrueView: watching what the player saw
Older playback showed a match as the server saw it, ignoring each player's network delay, so a shot could register in the replay even though it looked like a miss, or the other way round. TrueView, added on November 4, 2025, has the game redo the client-side prediction the watched player's PC ran during the match. In the game's own words, this "more closely recreates the conditions used by the server for bullet hit registration".
The sub-tick explainer covers the netcode behind hit registration. If the player had Damage Prediction turned on, TrueView shows those effects as well. It isn't exact: Valve says damage effects are timed differently in playback because of how CPU and GPU work is pipelined, and differences show most in slow motion.
TrueView turns itself off when your game version differs from the build that recorded the demo, since it might not work correctly. To try anyway, tick Allow Demo Version Mismatch in the settings, or set cl_demo_predict 2 in the console; 0 switches TrueView off and the default, 1, uses it only when the versions match.
Another switch, Include 'DOA' actions, deals with inputs the player's game predicted but the server never carried out, because the player was already dead when they arrived. Leave it on to see what the player saw, or turn it off for a replay closer to what the server did.
Demo console commands
playdemo also works from the main menu; the rest act on the demo that's playing.
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
playdemo <name> | Plays a .dem file from the game\csgo folder |
demoui | Shows or hides the playback controls |
demo_timescale <speed> | Sets the speed: 1 is normal, 2 is double, below 1 is slower |
demo_gototick <tick> | Jumps to a tick |
demo_togglepause | Pauses or resumes; demo_pause and demo_resume do one each |
demo_marktick | Marks the current tick; demo_gotomark returns to it |
demo_step_tick | Plays one tick, or the number you give, then pauses |
spec_show_xray 0 | Turns X-ray off; 1 turns it back on |
Recording your own demos
record, which once let any player save a demo of a match in progress, has carried the cheat flag since December 2025. It now runs only with sv_cheats 1, which means offline or on a private server, so it no longer works in matchmaking.
On a server you run, CSTV, the server's built-in spectator feed, can record instead. tv_enable switches CSTV on, tv_record starts a recording and tv_stoprecord ends it. With CSTV on, tv_autorecord 1 records every match automatically.
Match sharing codes and stats sites
Each match page has a Copy match sharing code button. Stats and demo-analysis sites ask for one of those codes plus a game authentication code, which you create on Steam's help site. Together they let the site fetch the code of each later match and keep loading your new games.
According to the game's own description, sites can use the authentication code to "access your match history, your overall performance in those matches, download replays of your matches, and analyze your gameplay". Steam Support doesn't review or endorse these sites, so only approve a request from one you trust, and you can revoke an issued code at any time.
The site brings its own Steam Web API key and doesn't need yours. If one asks for your key anyway, read the API key scam guide first.
Sources
- Counter-Strike 2 Update, October 14, 2026 — Steam Community
- Introducing TrueView — Steam Community
- Release Notes for 5/23/2024 — Steam Community
- csgo_english.txt, CS2's English interface text — GameTracking-CS2 on GitHub
- commands.txt, CS2 console command dump — GameTracking-CS2 on GitHub
- convars.txt, CS2 console variable dump — GameTracking-CS2 on GitHub
- How To Watch Demos In CS2 — Hotspawn
- Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Access Match History (archived August 2026) — Valve Developer Community
