How to Watch CS2 Demos: Controls, TrueView and Commands

Valve's notes for the October 14, 2026 Counter-Strike 2 update gave the demo viewer four short lines: a progress bar for demo downloads, camera controls that now work by clicking and dragging, free and chase cameras that keep working while a demo is paused, and fixes for jumping around a demo. The files that shipped with it show a much bigger job. The speed control became a slider that runs from 0.1x to 4x, the hotkey hints printed on the bar are gone, and the bar gained a player picker, a jump-to-the-next-kill button, a camera button, a tick counter and a menu that skips to the start of a round's action.

So a demo guide written before mid-October describes a bar that no longer exists. Here is the current one: how to get a match onto your PC, what every control on the new bar does, how highlights and TrueView work, and the console commands that still matter.

The controller comes from its own layout and script (huddemocontroller.xml and huddemocontroller.js), the Watch menu from the match-info and match-list scripts, and the settings and commands from the game's English strings and its console command and variable dumps, all read from SteamDB's public GameTracking-CS2 repository at the October 22, 2026 build. That build's release notes cover map scripting only, and the controller's layout and script have not changed since October 14; the October 22 build only restyled its menus and settings panel. The history comes from Valve's release notes.

Demos in 30 seconds

Getting a match onto your PC

The Watch menu is the TV icon in the main menu's top bar, with the tooltip "Watch matches and tournaments." It has three tabs: Your Matches, Downloaded and Majors.

1. Open Your Matches. When the list is empty, the game's message says your recent "Ranked Competitive" matches will show up there. The rank system guide covers how Premier and Competitive differ.
2. Select a match and press Download. While it works, a Downloading panel shows, and since October 14 it carries a progress bar and a percentage. When a match is too old, the Download button is greyed out and its tooltip says the demo has expired and can no longer be downloaded. The game does not say after how long.
3. Press Watch. Once the match is on your PC, Download gives way to Watch, plus two icon buttons, Watch Highlights and Watch Lowlights. Those two only light up after you select a player's row on that match's scoreboard, and their tooltips then name the player.
4. Clean up when you are done. The same screen has buttons to copy the match sharing code and to delete the local demo files. If a download breaks, a Download Incomplete button appears. It either offers to fetch the files again, as it does for a match opened from the Majors tab, or explains that the scoreboard is available but the match cannot be watched, as it always does from the Downloaded tab.

The script carries a "Watch This Round" handler for the round-by-round bars on the match screen, but in the current build that handler is switched off in the code. Start the demo and use the round arrows instead.

The Downloaded tab lists what is already on your PC. On disk, the client's strings put downloaded matches in a folder called replays, each .dem file with a .dem.info file beside it.

The controller, button by button

The bar along the bottom of the screen has two rows: a timeline on top and the controls underneath. From left to right:

The timeline carries the rest. Each round is a band on the timeline, alternating in shade, and icons mark kills and deaths. The script rebuilds those icons every time you switch players, so they follow whoever you are watching. Clicking one jumps to 128 ticks before it, which the code writes as 64 × 2: two seconds at 64 ticks a second.

Three behaviours worth knowing:

• Play resumes at 1x, not your last speed. The play button's tooltip says so. To come out of a pause in slow motion, drag the slider from pause to 0.25x instead.
• The camera moves while the demo is paused. Valve decoupled demo camera movement from playback speed on April 25, 2024, so the camera could move during a pause, and its October 14 notes say the free and chase cameras are both usable while a demo is paused.
• On a narrow screen the bar folds itself up. The October 14 build first hides the camera label, then the tick counter, then shortens the time display, until the row fits.

If the bar is in your way, the demoui console command shows or hides it, and demo_ui_mode sets how it opens: 0 for off, 1 for minimal, which leaves only the timeline, and 2 for the full bar, the default.

Two checks a demo makes easy: run your peeks at 0.25x to check that you stopped before you fired (the movement guide explains why that matters), and watch your sprays in first person against the patterns in the spray control guide.

What October 14 changed

That is the bar from Valve's November 2025 TrueView announcement, with six speed buttons running up to 8x and the hotkey hints printed on it. The game files show the next step on January 21, 2026, when the six buttons became a single speed label that opened a menu, and X-Ray and TrueView got checkboxes in a new settings panel. The October 14 rebuild replaced most of what was left:

Valve's notes mention none of the slider, the player list or the kill button. If you miss 8x, try demo_timescale from the console; I have not tested how high it goes.

Highlights mode

Valve added highlights on May 23, 2024. Its notes describe a mode that plays only the kills and deaths of the player you are watching, and the kill and death markers on the timeline arrived in the same update. Two console variables set the length of each clip: demo_highlight_seconds_before is 6 and demo_highlight_seconds_after is 2, so each kill or death plays from 6 seconds before it to 2 seconds after, with a quarter-second fade at each end.

Turn it on with the film button, or start a demo already in it with Watch Highlights from the match screen. While it is on:

• The round arrows step between highlights instead of rounds, and the round number gives way to "Highlights," with a Highlight Start entry in its menu.
• The next-kill button stays with your player. It moves to the next kill or death of the player you are watching, not anyone's.
• It cannot start from Free Cam. The film button is greyed out while you are in Free Cam with highlights off; switch to first person or Chase Cam to turn it on.

Highlights is the fast review. For the context around a duel, such as the utility that came before it or where your teammates were, switch it off and watch the whole round.

TrueView: what the player saw

Valve added TrueView on November 4, 2025. Until then a demo showed the server's view of the match, with no allowance for network latency, so a shot could look like a miss and count as a hit, or the reverse. TrueView re-runs the watched player's client-side prediction to rebuild their screen more closely, and it also shows Damage Prediction effects if that player had them switched on. Valve's notes are specific about how close it gets: the frame on which the player clicked, the one hit registration uses, is accurate to the nearest playback frame, but frame timings are not rebuilt, so slow motion can still differ from what the player saw.

It lives under the gear:

The 'DOA' and version boxes only work while TrueView is on. The practical read:

• To judge what the player saw, leave the defaults alone. TrueView with 'DOA' actions is the closest you get to their screen.
• To judge what the server did, untick 'DOA' actions. The game's own description says that makes playback differ from the player's experience but match the server more closely.
• A demo recorded on another game version plays without TrueView by default. Tick Allow Demo Version Mismatch to try it anyway; Valve's notes warn it may not work properly on old demos.

Console commands that still work

Every name, default and description below is in the command and variable dumps of the October 22, 2026 build:

The tick commands are the ones to learn. demo_marktick and demo_gotomark let you rewatch one duel as many times as you like: mark the tick before it, watch, jump back. And now that the bar shows the tick, you can note the number of a moment and return to it later with demo_gototick.

Recording works differently. The command dump flags record as a cheat command, so it will not run on a server with cheats off. Your matchmaking demos are recorded on Valve's servers: Valve's September 28, 2023 notes switched CSTV and demo recording off for a while to free up server capacity. On a server you run, tv_record records the match, and since November 8, 2023 tv_record_immediate 1 starts the recording from the moment you enter the command, rather than from the broadcast delay (tv_delay) earlier. The practice server guide covers setting up a server of your own.

Chat, old demos and other gotchas

• Team chat is gone, and all chat needs the Watch menu. Since September 9, 2026, demos encrypt chat the way CS:GO's did: team chat cannot be read in playback, and all chat appears only when you play the demo through the in-game Watch menu. Load it with playdemo and you see neither.
• Old demos can break after updates. Valve has fixed older demos failing to play more than once (December 13, 2023 and February 8, 2024), and the game carries an error for a demo file that is incompatible with your game version.
• Incomplete files still play. Since January 28, 2025 the game can play a demo that was copied from a match still in progress or recovered after a server crash.
• The end of a demo pauses. Since May 1, 2024 playback stops on the last frame instead of dropping you back at the main menu; demo_pause_at_end controls it.
• Skipping forward got faster. Valve's April 30, 2024 notes cut the time a forward skip takes by as much as 80%.
• Overwatch cases use a different bar. Valve added Overwatch on April 25, 2024 for demo review by trusted partners. In a case, the controller renames Quit to Skip To Verdict (Go To Verdict once you reach the end), hides the film button and ignores the show/hide toggle.

Demos in Valve's release notes

I searched the 311 Counter-Strike announcements Steam lists from March 22, 2023 to October 22, 2026 for "demo," "replay" and "TrueView." These are the lines that change how demos work for a player, plus the two fixes for older demos; I left out crash, animation, sound, visual and other minor fixes:

What I could not verify

• How long a match stays downloadable. The game says only that an expired demo can no longer be downloaded.
• Which modes Your Matches lists. Its empty-list message names "Ranked Competitive" matches; I could not check in the client which other modes appear.
• What Watch Lowlights picks. The files name the button but do not define the events it plays.
• What Action Start marks. The script takes one tick per round from the game; the name suggests the end of freeze time, but nothing in the files says so.
• The show/hide key. The game's strings still carry a "[Shift+F2]" label for the demo toggle, but nothing in the current controller displays it, and the key binder lists no demo keys.
• Whether the old hotkeys still work. The October 14 build removed the printed hints; I did not check whether the keys behind them still switch players and cameras.
• The top speed from the console. The slider stops at 4x; I did not test how high demo_timescale goes.
• The full path on disk. The client's strings give a replays folder but not where it sits.

More mode and weapon breakdowns live on the Counter-Strike 2 coverage hub, and the wider archive is on the Mythras blog.

Quick Action Checklist

• Watch (the TV icon), then Your Matches, then select a match, Download and Watch.
• Select a player's row on the scoreboard to enable Watch Highlights and Watch Lowlights.
• The speed slider runs from 0.1x to 4x, and the play button always resumes at 1x.
• Use -15s and +15s, the round arrows and the next-kill button to move around.
• Click the player's name to pick anyone alive from a list.
• Free Cam and Chase Cam both work while the demo is paused.
• Highlights plays 6 seconds before and 2 after each kill or death of the player you watch, and cannot be switched on from Free Cam.
• TrueView is on by default for demos from your current game version; tick Allow Demo Version Mismatch for older ones.
• Untick 'DOA' actions to see what the server ran rather than what the player's game predicted.
• Note the tick and use demo_gototick, or demo_marktick and demo_gotomark, to rewatch a moment.
• Play demos through the Watch menu if you want all chat; team chat is unreadable either way.