If you’ve ever queued for a ranked CS2 match and felt underprepared for how fast opponents move, or just want to mess around with weird loadouts without ruining your rank, you’re not alone. Playing against AI opponents is one of the most underrated ways to get better at the game, or just have a low-stakes fun session when your friends are offline. I’ve spent dozens of hours testing bot setups to practice smokes on new maps and warm up before ranked queues, and learning how to play with bots in CS2 is way more versatile than most players realize. You don’t need any special mods or paid tools to get started, either – all the features we’ll cover are built right into the base game.
How to Play with Bots in CS2: Basic Offline Match Setup
Getting started with a standard bot match takes less than a minute, no extra downloads required. First, open CS2 and navigate to the main Play menu, then select the “Practice with Bots” option from the dropdown of game modes. From there, you can pick your preferred game type – casual, competitive, deathmatch, or wingman – and choose the map you want to play on.
You’ll also see a difficulty slider ranging from easy to expert, so you can pick a skill level that matches your current ability. If you want to play with friends against bots, just invite them to your lobby before launching the match, and the game will automatically adjust team sizes to fit everyone. You can toggle friendly fire on or off before starting the match if you want to practice team play scenarios without worrying about accidentally killing your AI teammates.
Once you launch the match, you can immediately jump into play just like you would in a standard online match. Bots will follow standard game rules, planting or defusing the bomb, holding sites, and pushing objectives just like real players would, minus the toxic voice chat you often get in random matchmaking lobbies.
Custom Bot Settings to Tailor Your Practice Session
Standard bot matches are fine for casual play, but if you want to use bots for targeted practice, you’ll want to use a few simple console commands to tweak their behavior. First, enable the developer console by going to Game Settings and toggling “Enable Developer Console (~)” to yes. Once you’re in a bot match, press the ~ key to open the console and enter any of the following commands to adjust your setup:
- bot_kick: Removes all existing bots from the match so you can add specific types later
- botaddt / botaddct: Adds a bot to the Terrorist or Counter-Terrorist side, respectively
- bot_difficulty [0-3]: Sets bot skill level, 0 being easiest, 3 being the hardest, most aggressive expert bots
- bot_stop 1: Freezes all bots in place, perfect for practicing grenade lineups or prefire angles
- mproundtimedefuse 60: Extends round time for defusal maps to 60 minutes, so you don't have to restart rounds constantly during practice
I use botstop 1 almost every time I'm learning a new smoke for Inferno or Mirage, because it lets me line up the throw without bots rushing me mid-practice. If you're warming up for a ranked match, set botdifficulty to 2 and play 10 minutes of deathmatch against them – it's a great way to get your aim loose before you face real players. Avoid setting bot difficulty to 3 if you're a new player, as these bots have near-perfect aim and can be frustrating to play against, even for intermediate players.
You can also use the bot_quota [number] command to set how many bots total are in the match, so you can do 1v5 retake scenarios if you want to practice holding a site alone against multiple opponents.
Fun Ways to Play with Bots Beyond Basic Practice
Bots aren’t just for practicing aim and grenade lineups – they’re also perfect for silly, low-stakes game sessions when you don’t feel like dealing with the pressure of ranked play. One of my favorite go-to bot game modes is hide and seek: set all bots to difficulty 1, restrict everyone to knives only, and see how long you can avoid being caught while running around the map. If you’re playing with friends, you can split into teams and take turns hiding and seeking with bots filling in the extra spots.
Another fun option is loadout challenges, where you restrict bots to only one type of weapon and give yourself a different loadout to see how many kills you can get. I’ve done everything from only using a scout against a full lobby of bot shotgunners, to only using the zeus taser against bots armed with AKs. Playing custom bot games with friends is a great way to kill time when you don't feel like dealing with toxic randoms in matchmaking. I once did a 4 hour session with my friends where we set all bots to use only the Negev and we used only Deagles, it was way more fun than any ranked match I've played that month.
You can also use bots to test new map updates before you jump into online play. When Valve released the updated Anubis map last year, I spent an hour running around it with bots to learn all the new callouts and angles before I queued for a competitive match, which saved me from getting caught off guard by new corners I didn’t know existed.
Common Bot Play Issues and How to Fix Them
While CS2’s bot system is generally pretty reliable, there are a few common issues players run into when setting up custom games. The most frequent complaint I hear is that bots keep rushing the same site every round, which makes practice feel repetitive. That’s an easy fix: just enter botrush 0 in the console, which will make bots use more varied positioning and push different sites instead of sticking to the same path every round. You can also use botcrouch 1 to make bots hold positions more instead of running around the nonstop.
Another common issue is not being able to add more than 10 bots total to the match. By default, CS2 limits team sizes to 5 players per side, but you can remove that limit by entering mplimitteams 0 and mpautoteambalance 0 in the console. That will let you add as many bots as you want, as long as your PC can handle the extra player load.
If bots aren’t planting the bomb or defusing it when they’re supposed to, first make sure you’re playing in competitive or casual mode, not deathmatch. If they still aren’t interacting with the bomb, enter botallowplant 1 and botallowdefuse 1 in the console to enable those behaviors. If you're playing with friends and bots keep getting in the way of your practice, you can kick individual bots by typing bot_kick [bot name] in console, instead of removing all of them at once.
If your game starts stuttering or crashing when you add too many bots, that’s completely normal. Most mid-range PCs can handle up to 32 total players (you plus 31 bots) before you start getting noticeable frame drops, so stick to smaller lobbies if you have an older computer.
At the end of the day, you don't have to only play CS2 against real opponents to have fun or get better at the game. Whether you're a new player learning the basics, an intermediate player practicing grenade lineups, or a group of friends looking for a low-stakes game night activity, learning how to play with bots in CS2 opens up a ton of possibilities you won't find in standard matchmaking. You don't need any fancy mods or paid tools to use any of these features, either – everything we covered is built right into the base game for free. Next time you're not in the mood to deal with ranked stress, give bot play a try – you might be surprised how much you get out of it.