Valve’s Counter-Strike has been around for over two years, with its most popular game Counter-Strike: Global Offensive being almost ten years old. CS:GO has always increased in popularity and quality, showing how well-made the game is and how often it’s updated.
Currently, the game has almost 30 million active players, and it recently hit its record best with a player count of 1.8 million. However, now Valve can see that the game is becoming old-fashioned and has been busy developing its sequel, Counter-Strike 2.
CS2 uses the brand-new Source 2 engine, and after months of development, the game is finally ready for release. In March, the Counter-Strike 2 limited beta test went live, but it was way more limited than anyone thought it would be.
Around 0.2% of players in the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive community have access to CS2, with most of them being professional players or community figures. In this article, we will discuss everything about the game, including its release date, news, and some thrilling updates!
When is The Release Date For Counter-Strike 2?
Valve has officially confirmed the Counter-Strike 2 release date, which will be sometime in Summer 2023. This places the release date sometime between now and September 30. Our best guess is that CS2 might release sometime in August since Counter-Strike: Global Offensive itself was released on August 21, 2012.
Also, with the release date decision, Valve will have to keep the esports calendar in mind since there are some big CS:GO events coming up, such as BLAST Fall Groups in July. However, a reputable data miner and leaker called Aquarius has speculated that Valve might not worry a lot about interrupting these events since an optional Counter-Strike: Global Offensive depot could still be made available if the need for it arises.'
What Platforms Will Counter-Strike 2 Support?
Valve hasn’t yet confirmed if they have any plans of releasing CS2 for PS5 or Xbox Series X with the confirmed PC release. However, CS:GO did feature a limited launch on both PS3 and Xbox 360, so fingers crossed!
Confirmed New Features In Counter-Strike 2
Jump-throw Keybind
Valve has officially confirmed that Counter-Strike 2 will feature a built-in version of the beloved third-party jump-throw tool. This will allow players to bind the jump as well as throw actions to one key called the jump throw bind. While jumping, players have little time to throw a smoke grenade, providing players with constant jump throws each time.
VAC Live (New Anti-Cheat)
In other news, Valve is also using an upgraded version of their popular anti-cheat system, called VAC. It is said that the new system, dubbed VAC Live, will have the power to detect when a player is cheating while the match is in motion.
Matches will end in an instant when VAC Live detects the prints of a cheater, saving both teams time since they can quickly line up for another game. Check out this in-game footage of how the dubbed VAC Live removes a cheater within seconds of being reported.
Follow Recoil
The CS2 limited test also features a particular setting known as “follow recoil,” which enables the player’s crosshair to move while firing a weapon. This allows the players an opportunity to drag their mouse in the right direction to compensate for the recoil. This makes it much easier for players to account for recoil using particular weapons.
Players can also find this weapon in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, but they will need to enable cheats in order to activate it. The CS:GO community is happy with this change in Counter-Strike 2 since it makes things a tad bit easier for beginners who haven’t really had the time to memorize the recoil patterns.
Lastly, CS2 will also feature Nvidia Reflex support at launch, which helps reduce hardware-related latency problems.
What Does The Counter-Strike 2 Gameplay Look Like?
It is expected that Valve will release more CS2 gameplay details gradually as the release date approaches, but we can pretty much guess what to expect. To begin with, Counter-Strike 2 won’t be that different from what players know and love, i.e., a fast-paced, thrilling first-person shooter in which teams work together to beat the opposing team, disarm explosives and trade the money earned for much better and useful weaponry.
Even though the basics might not be changing, the vibe of Counter-Strike 2 will be different since it will be quicker and much more responsive to players’ actions. That is huge news for a video game that is quite often won or lost within seconds between inputs.
Valve plans to accomplish this by overhauling the way Counter-Strike 2 tracks player movement, throwing, as well as shooting, making it so that the tick rate will no longer get in anyone’s way. Previously, CS:GO would communicate players’ actions to the server in separate time intervals (called ticks).
However, the new architecture developed for CS2 will make sure that the servers "know the exact instant that motion starts, a shot is fired, or a 'nade is thrown." Valve promises that it will ensure that "regardless of tick rate, your moving and shooting will be equally responsive, and your grenades will always land the same way."
Other Counter-Strike 2 Updates
Players should get ready to experience plenty of updates to the gameplay in Counter-Strike 2, including sub-tick updates, which means that the tick rate no longer matters for moving and shooting. The game will also calculate the exact actions between ticks.
When it comes to visuals, CS2 has seen a huge upgrade to the existing maps. Massive gameplay improvements have also been introduced, such as rendering, new lighting, and an overhaul to returning maps such as Italy, Overpass, as well as Zoo.
Now, smoke grenades are dynamic and have the ability to fill space and create volumetric 3D blooms. Players will now be able to see the same bloom, which can easily be pushed with the help of other grenades and other such forces. CS2 will allow players to have loadouts, complete with the ability to buy weapons and move things around in a match.
It seems like Counter-Strike 2 has encouraged plenty of former players to dive back into the game, with a maximum peak of 1.8 million players on CS:GO in early May. This was a significant increase since there were around 1.6 million players in April.
