Counter-Strike 2 may launch this Month
Counter-Strike 2 is apparently real and a beta version due for launch later this month according to a new report.
A reputed esports journalist Richard Lewis reported some days ago that Counter-Strike 2 has been in development at Valve for some time and is due to launch in a beta state this month.
The team working on the new game features developers that have previously worked across other versions of Counter-Strike, and this new version has been the focus of the Counter-Strike dev team for some time, which is why some bugs in CS:GO have remained unfixed for a while.
Lewis also states that Counter-Strike 2 will feature 128 tick servers, something the CS:GO community has wanted for years, and an updated matchmaking system that will be closer to what external services such as FACEIT currently offer. However, the new match-making system is not expected to be available when the beta launches.
Of course, the move over to the Source 2 engine is expected to offer a number of improvements when it comes to visuals and optimization, but this could come at the cost of increased resources required to run the game meaning some players with lower spec PCs could need to upgrade to be able to play.
The news comes after rumours of a major update to CS:GO have intensified over recent weeks. Official Counter-Strike social accounts have been more active than usual, including the addition of a new Tik Tok account, and listings for Counter-Strike 2 have been spotted in NVIDIA driver updates, which started increased speculation. Lewis’ report now appears to confirm that there are indeed some major changes coming to the Counter-Strike world, and they might be even bigger than initially anticipated.
Lewis also raises the question of how this will impact the professional Counter-Strike scene, which is now bigger than ever. When CS:GO first launched over 10 years ago the professional community was very fragmented between CS 1.6 and CS Source, with few initially making the jump over to CS:GO.
Now with the entire pro scene firmly on one game, there is a chance that the shift to a new game is smoother and mandated by Valve, or it may again be left to the community and we could again see a split pro scene for some time. Either way, it is unlikely that Counter-Strike 2 will become the main game played at the pro level immediately, as Valve will want to make sure the game is stable before making the change.