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Counter-Strike Online for Asia

New version.

Valve has told everyone it will be making a new version of Counter-Strike for the Asian market.

It will be completely online, and pushed out across Japan, Taiwan, China and South Korea by Nexon - a publisher most well known for MMORPG MapleStory.

"By combining their proven development abilities and leadership position in Asia with Counter-Strike's award-winning core gameplay, we have the recipe for customising an online phenomenon for each of the Asian markets," said Gabe Newell, head honcho at Valve.

Counter-Strike is a tactical first-person shooter that was first released in 1999, then revamped to launch alongside Half-Life 2 in 2004.

You play as either a good-guy or a terrorist, and co-ordinate fancy attacks with groups of your friends. It's immensely popular for its realism (or at least its severity), and is estimated to generate around five billion minutes of play-time a month. Cor. If I was clever I would tell you how many people that meant were playing it.

It isn't yet clear what Valve will be doing to Counter-Strike Online to make it different, but we wouldn't expect it will be too far from the version we've been playing for a while.

We shall keep you posted.