- Valve is apparently working on a Source 2 version of CS:GO
- This could be a rework or massive update for the current CS:GO version
- A Counter-Strike 2 beta should be revealed very soon
Rumors about a new Counter-Strike game have been abundant in the past couple of years, but it seems we finally have some concrete evidence of this.
There Are Now Credible Sources on CS2
Counter-Strike has been a staple of the competitive FPS field ever since its first iteration came out as a mod for Half-Life in 1999. The venerable Counter-Strike 1.6 came out as a standalone game in 20000 and ever since, millions of players, including this article’s author, have grown up playing it on old Windows98 PCs at home and net cafes around the world. But the franchise evolved over the past 20 years, with the game going through its CS: Source stage, only to come to the current iteration of the game – CS:GO.
However, it seems Valve has not stopped developing it, as we might soon be seeing a sequel to it. If reports by esports journalist Richard Lewis are to be believed, the company is preparing a new version of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive built on the Source 2 engine. Although there have been numerous rumors about this in the past couple of years, Lewis’ sources are quite reliable. The reporter has already broken big CS:GO stories in the past and he has recently stated that he’s been told Valve already enlisted a group of professional CS:GO players to try out the updated game at the company’s Seattle headquarters.
These rumors are supported by data posted by popular Valve leaker “Gabe Follower” on Twitter, who recently posted screenshots of the latest NVIDIA drivers. “Latest NVIDIA drivers introduced support for unknown app executables called “csgos2.exe” and “cs2.exe”,” the leaker explains. This could point to the fact there might already be a working version of the game.
Richard Lewis explained in his report that his Valve-leaked sources, that desired to remain anonymous, told him that the Source 2 version of Counter-Strike had been a priority at Valve in recent times. “The big priority is getting this out and then polishing it, fixing any bugs, and bringing it up to the level people expect from CS,” the report reads.
Lewis’s report also says that Counter-Strike 2 is apparently “ready to go”, with a beta version due for release in March 2023, with April 1 at the latest. Additionally, the move to the Source 2 engine would mean a huge performance increase, with CS2 allegedly boasting 128 tick servers at launch, a feature heavily requested by CSGO players. Valve is apparently also working on an improved matchmaking system to lessen the need for ‘third-party’ matchmakers like FACEIT and ESEA.
What remains unclear is how the new iteration of the game would be integrated into the current hyper-competitive top level of CS:GO. It’s unknown if CS2 will be an entirely separate game, or if Valve is going to do a merger like Blizzard did with Overwatch 2, effectively replacing the old game with its new version.
The answer to this question has concerned greatly players who were quite active in the current skin economy. However, according to Gabe Follower, the new game will not in fact be “Counter-Strike 2” or rebranded at all. Rather, the final product will just be CS:GO running on the Source 2 engine.
With multiple high-level and respected leakers reporting on it, it’s clear we will soon have a new iteration of Counter-Strike, over a decade after the release of CS:GO.
