Counter-Strike is a name synonymous with the pro gaming scene, and has been since the early 2000s. As one of the first competitive renditions in the first-person-shooter (FPS) genre, tournaments have been played in the Counter-Strike format since 2001, and are ongoing today. The Counter-Strike that most people know of began in 2012, when Valve released Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CSGO) and began sponsoring official tournaments to unite the previously split competitive scene. Despite being such an old game concept, the game has maintained its long-standing title as most-played game on Steam, with an all-time active player peak count of over 1.5 million players at one time. Since CSGO’s release over a decade ago, many issues have been brought up by the community. These have mostly been to do with in-game features such as server tick rate, anti-cheat programs, skill-based matchmaking algorithms, and weapon balance. This resulted in a love-hate relationship with the game and its developer, Valve, for many players. Many fans, including myself, had reached the point of accepting that Valve had moved on past CSGO, after Valve repeatedly seemed to ignore the players’ feedback by releasing completely irrelevant updates and patches to the game, often to do with cosmetics that players could pay for. Nevertheless, it seems that our prayers have been answered with the announcement of Counter-Strike 2 (CS2).

Rumors about a potential sequel to CSGO have been circulating for years now. Valve made an official announcement on March 23 announcing the game’s expected release in summer, as well as some of the main features that come with the update. Valve also provided access to a limited beta build of the game to certain players to provide the developers with much needed feedback to finish polishing the game and make it as tournament-ready as possible from day one. Unlike previous renditions of Counter-Strike, CS2 will be more of an update to the already existing CSGO instead of a completely new game in itself. The reasons behind this haven’t been explicitly stated but many speculate this to be to maintain the very prolific CSGO economy revolving around collectible in-game cosmetics. To render CSGO’s market null would probably be the worst thing Valve could do both from a business and social standpoint.

The most notable changes in CS2 are the smoke grenades and the game tick rate. Smoke grenades have a problematic history in CSGO, with certain bugs being taken advantage of to provide one-way vision through the smoke. Competitors to the Counter-Strike franchise, such as Riot Games’s Valorant, have avoided this issue by creating smoke grenade equivalents with very clear boundaries to the smoke. CS2 has thrown a curveball, programming the smoke to fill in nearby gaps rather than being a set spherical visual obstruction. Furthermore, the smoke is now interactive, allowing players to see through small gaps in the smoke when shooting through it, or to temporarily dissipate the smoke by throwing a high explosive grenade into it. This adds a new element of strategy to the game, making an already heavily tactical game even more so. 

The game tick rate update is something many players were ecstatic about. Traditionally, in-game actions in FPS games only registered at certain intervals of time. This was dubbed “tick”, with “64 tick” meaning that this interval of time was 1/64^th of a second. For the most part, the tick rate was not an issue. However, in a game where thousandths of a second matter, it became a larger and larger problem as the player base grew. Again, competitors tried to edge past CSGO by implementing servers with a higher tick rate, such as Valorant’s 128 tick servers. CS2 has pivoted around this issue entirely with a new system that effectively eliminates tick rates. Valve call this their ‘sub-tick’ update, where the server takes the exact time of input of each in-game action. Based on their announcement video, this seems to measure to the nearest 1/100,000^th of a second. From a competitive standpoint, this has raised the skill ceiling of an already competitive game. The game will now be able to differentiate between the thousandths of a second difference between players’ reaction times.

Being fortunate enough to have been selected for the beta testing of CS2, I have spent hours playing around with the new mechanics and enjoying the updated visuals of the competitive maps. I think the timing for the CS2 update couldn’t be any better, as this far surpasses all expectations of an update to the CSGO franchise. The visuals are vibrant, but do not overwhelm the players with information. Everything has an element of function. The shooting and movement feel incredibly smooth with the sub-tick update doing its job well. Things like anti-cheat and matchmaking updates are yet to be tested due to the limited nature of the beta release; however, I do have high hopes after seeing the incredible work done on the aspects seen so far.