Budapest Major 2025 was supposed to start brightly, but instead of an impressive opening, the biggest event of the year began trending because of technical chaos. Memes and disappointment — that is how the community greeted the first day of the championship, forcing StarLadder to react quickly and issue a public apology. And although the organizer insists that the situation will be brought under control, audience trust has already been put at serious risk.
StarLadder apologized and promised to fix the situation
The first day of Budapest Major 2025 ended not with discussions about the matches, but with a wave of criticism toward StarLadder. After a series of technical issues — from complete audio loss to delays, quality drops, and broadcast mishaps — the organizer finally issued a public apology.
In its statement, StarLadder acknowledged the failure of the opening day and promised to stabilize production as quickly as possible in the coming days of the Major. The post was accompanied by a symbolic image of the Chrome offline dinosaur — a gesture that viewers immediately interpreted as an attempt at self-irony after the broadcast chaos.
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What happened and why the apology was inevitable
The problems continued throughout the entire first day: unexpected audio failures, loud channel overlaps, major imbalance between the Twitch and Kick streams, and even a moment when CSTV was shut off before the match ended, leaving part of the audience without the final round. The situation was made worse by the stark contrast in stream quality across platforms — clips of “broken audio,” memes, and compilations of bugged casts flooded social media instantly.
Public pressure grew by the hour, so StarLadder had to make an open statement:
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#StarLadder #BudapestMajor pic.twitter.com/hXDmu0ybPV
— StarLadder CS2 (@StarLadder_CS) November 25, 2025
But the apology only partially eased the tension — the community is now carefully watching whether the organizers can regain control and avoid another day of technical collapse.
Community reaction
Viewers, streamers, and analysts erupted with comments — from jokes and memes to sharp criticism. Some of the community is trying to support the organizer, but the majority demands immediate fixes.
A small selection of reactions:
FURIOUSSS:
The audio on Twitch vs the audio on Kick… absolutely shameless.
dingleCS2:
How will you compensate for the thousands of broken ears yesterday?
Investor_DFS:
If you were a NASDAQ stock, I would have shorted you with everything I have.
KRL_STREAM:
Please don’t shut down CSTV early — with 180 seconds delay we can’t see the end of the match.
Theleux:
Fix the audio and timings and everything will go up. But the day was rough.
Fire Everyone:
Turn on a proper codec, turn on 4K, and this nightmare won’t happen.
The community has already nicknamed the event “StarLadder Audio Major 2025,” and memes about “Minecraft sound” and “broken servers” are getting hundreds of thousands of views.
What this means for StarLadder and the Major itself
Budapest Major was StarLadder’s chance to return to the status of a top-tier tournament organizer after years of absence. Instead, the start has become a critical test of their ability to maintain standards and meet the expectations of a scene long accustomed to the stable production of ESL and BLAST.
Day two will be decisive: either StarLadder turns the situation around and returns focus to the game, or risks going down in history as the organizer with the strangest Major start in CS2.
