- Watch → Your Matches
- Shift + F2 = playback bar
- FACEIT: last 30 days
- 4 passes, 1 habit
Every Premier, Competitive and Wingman match you play is recorded, and watching it back is the cheapest coaching there is. Most players never do it — or they open one demo, watch a full match at normal speed, get bored at round 9 and learn nothing. This guide covers the mechanics (where to download a demo, how to open FACEIT and shared files, the controls that matter) and then a four-pass method that turns one match into one concrete fix in about half an hour.
game\csgo inside the CS2 install
folder and type playdemo <file> in the console. Then review in four passes: your deaths, your
utility, your buys, and one habit to fix.- Download soon after you play. Valve doesn't publish how long in-game downloads stay available; FACEIT keeps the last 30 days.
- Shift + F2 is the only shortcut you need to start — the console commands are for precision.
- Turn X-ray off when you judge your own decisions: you only knew what your player could see.
- Review deaths, not highlights. Your best rounds teach you the least.
- Leave with one habit. Fix it in the next week's games and check it in the next demo.
How to download your CS2 demos
- Open the Watch tab.
It's the TV icon in the main menu. Choose Your Matches — Valve's list of your recent Premier, Competitive and Wingman games, with the scoreboard for each.
- Download the match.
Press the download button on the match you want. Since the 14 October 2026 update a progress bar shows how far the download has got.
- Press Watch.
The demo opens in-game. Downloaded files are kept in
game\csgo\replaysinside the CS2 install folder — you don't need to touch them to watch.
Valve doesn't state how many days a match stays downloadable, so treat it like a receipt: grab the ones you want to study the same day. Third-party stats sites that read your matches through Valve's sharing codes can only use codes from about the last one month.
FACEIT demos and shared files
FACEIT's own steps: open the match room on faceit.com and press Watch Demo — it works for matches from
the last 30 days. The download comes compressed; extract the .dem file (any archive tool
does it), move it into game\csgo inside the CS2 install folder, then start CS2, open
the console and type playdemo followed by the file name. The same works for a demo a teammate or
coach sends you.
No console? Turn it on under Settings → Game → Enable Developer Console, then press the ~ key (the one under Esc).
The controls that matter
| Key or command | What it does |
|---|---|
Shift + F2 | Opens or hides the demo playback bar (timeline, speed, pause). |
demoui | The same playback bar, typed in the console. |
playdemo <file> | Plays a demo file from the game folder — FACEIT or shared demos. |
demo_timescale 0.5 | Half speed; 2 doubles it, 1 is normal. |
demo_gototick <tick> | Jumps straight to a tick, e.g. the start of a round you noted. |
demo_togglepause | Pauses or resumes (demo_pause / demo_resume do one each). |
spec_show_xray 0 | Turns the see-through-walls outlines off (1 turns them back on). |
The playback bar's timeline marks kills and deaths, so you can jump straight to the moments that matter instead of scrubbing. The 14 October 2026 update also switched the demo camera to click-and-drag and made the free and chase cameras usable while a demo is paused — useful for checking exactly where an opponent was standing when you died.
Review a demo in four passes
Watching a whole match at normal speed is entertainment, not review. Instead, go through it four times with one question each — at double speed between the moments that matter, half speed during fights.
- Pass 1 — every death.
Jump death to death with the timeline. For each one ask: what information did I have, was a teammate close enough to trade me, and did I need to take that fight at all? Watch it from your killer's view too — the moment they saw you is usually earlier than you think.
- Pass 2 — every grenade.
Did each smoke, flash and molotov land where you meant it, and did anyone use it? Count the rounds you died with utility still in your hands; that number alone is a common fix.
- Pass 3 — money.
At each round start, check the team's buy. Did you buy together, force when the economy said save, or save when a force could have won? Economy mistakes rarely show up as a single death but lose whole halves.
- Pass 4 — one habit.
Look at your notes and pick the mistake that repeats — the same peek, the same late rotation, the same dry entry. Write it in one line, play next week fixing only that, then check it in the next demo.
Common review mistakes
- Leaving X-ray on. It shows enemies through walls; judging your decisions with information you didn't have teaches the wrong lessons. Type
spec_show_xray 0. - Only watching wins and highlights. The rounds you lost hold the fixes.
- Blaming teammates. You can't change their play; note it and move on to what you control.
- Ten fixes at once. One habit per week sticks. Ten get forgotten by the next match.
- Never checking. The next demo is where you find out whether the fix worked.
When to get a second pair of eyes
Reviewing yourself has one blind spot: you can't see the mistakes you don't know are mistakes. That is what a demo analysis is for — you send the file in your order chat and a pro analyst returns a written, annotated report with a prioritised list of what to fix first. If you'd rather go through it live, a coaching session can start from the same demo. Not sure which fits? See is CS2 coaching worth it.
- Valve — CS2 release notes (8/31/2023: Your Matches menu and match-sharing codes up to a month old; 10/14/2026: download progress bar, click-and-drag camera, free and chase camera while paused)
- FACEIT Support — How to download and watch a CS2 demo (Watch Demo in the match room, last 30 days, extract, game\csgo, playdemo)
- Console commands as typed in the CS2 developer console. Review method: BoostPirate. Checked 2026-10-15.
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