“Sorry for letting you down,” StarLadder apologizes after tumultuous Budapest Major day one

Leonardo Biazzi Published November 25, 2025

StarLadder, the tournament operator organizing the Budapest Major, has issued an official apology to CS2 fans following the conclusion of the first day. Both rounds one and two of Stage 1 were marred by technical issues that caused long delays and a suboptimal experience for viewers, as the audio and HUD were faulty at times, too.

FaZe vs. Lynn Vision, for example, remained paused for approximately two hours due to technical issues. StarLadder promised, in its statement, to improve in the coming days.

Hi guys. We know we fell short today, and it impacted your experience. We’re working hard on fixing the stream, audio and stability issues.

Sorry for letting you down – we’re making things right and improving for the next days.

Benjamin “blameF” Bremer, Fnatic’s star and one of the players affected by the delays, shed light on how confusing the first day was in an interview with Dust2.dk.

“We were sitting at the PCs warming up and getting ready for the game, and then they said ‘In five minutes we’ll find out what’s happening, in ten minutes we’ll find out what’s happening’ and finally they said they didn’t know when, so now you might as well go down to the player lounge and wait,” blameF said.

Additionally, CS2 fans also commented on socials how poor the first day of the StarLadder Budapest Major was. Yesterday was just the start of the Major, and we’ll have two additional Swiss groups in the same venue, which is MTK Sportpark

This Starladder Major is fantastic, just needs to work on audio, internet, twitch stream quality, delays, production, stopping angry gambling company, video quality, glitches, multistream errors, nearly being kick exclusive, and replaying the first stage of games so my pick’ems…

— Garmour (@GarmourCS) November 24, 2025

The Budapest Major is StarLadder’s first Major since 2019

Although technical issues at Majors are common, especially on day one, many fans criticized Valve for letting StarLadder run a Major.

StarLadder had not organized a Major since the Berlin Major in 2019, and stayed away from Counter-Strike esports for years as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

StarLadder resurfaced in 2025, following its acquisition by Indian esports media production company NODWIN Gaming. In addition to the Major, StarLadder ran a tier 1.5 tournament in September, which featured only eight teams.

The StarLadder Budapest Major will resume today, November 25th, with Stage 1 round three.

Feature image credit: © StarLadder