21 March 2023 , 17:20
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Valve has begun to tease the Counter Strike community after weeks of rumours about the series next project.
Update [22/03/23]: Valve has officially confirmed the Counter Strike 2 release date.
Rumours about a new Counter Strike project have been coming to a boil over the last couple of weeks. Signs were pointing to Valve releasing CSGO Source 2 in beta as soon as the end of the month. Now, the official @CSGO Twitter account has updated its banner image with a brand new logo out of the blue. This has sent the community into a frenzy as it’s seemingly teasing something to come for the tactical shooter.
The rumour first appeared from Richard Lewis at the beginning of the month, saying that “Yes ‘Counter-Strike 2’ Is Real And It's Round The Corner”. You may have noticed that it says ‘Counter Strike 2’ and not Counter-Strike: Global Offensive 2 (CSGO 2). This was seen in some trademark info spotted @aquaismissing on Twitter, as well as in executable files labelled CS2 and CS:GOS2 spotted in Nvidia drivers by @gabefollower.
Based on this, the game seems to be adopting the name Counter Strike 2 or Counter Strike Source 2. Valve will be giving the game a new identity to go along with the new engine, possibly cutting the Global Offensive moniker. The most popular version of the original Counter Strike is Counter Strike: Source so a game titled Counter Strike: Source 2 seems like a smart bet.
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Door Stuck
Valve has been using the Source 2 engine since 2015. I'm shocked it's taken this long to port over it's most popular shooter (it's the most played game on Steam overall at the time of writing) to the engine. This is even more weird when you consider Valve's other multiplayer hit, Dota 2 got ported over to the new engine almost immediately back in 2015.
When Dota 2 was upgraded, the Source 2 version was moved to its own beta branch in June 2015. Players could opt in to this new version of the game, before it fully replaced the original client three months later. I would expect something similar to happen to CSGO when this new version is officially announced.
At the very least Valve seems to be having fun with players, responding to tweets about a potential Source 2 upgrade with a variety of funny gifs (mainly from The Office or It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia). It's nice to see the people over there are still in good spirits after their surprise was leaked.