If you found yourself waking up during the early hours of this morning with a strange and inexplicable sense of excitement coursing through you, I might just know why. Last night, or early this morning for us South Africans, Valve officially announced a game that fans have been waiting for with bated breath, Counter-Strike 2.
As part of the announcement, Valve stated they wouldn’t just be slapping a 2 at the end of Counter-Strike and calling it a day, instead, they would be overhauling every system, every piece of content and every core part of the experience. And because a picture is worth a thousand words, Valve released videos alongside the announcement showing Counter-Strike 2 in action.
These videos showcase the newly updated maps, updates to the smoke grenades in-game and sub-trick updates. That’s not even the most exciting part of this whole announcement, which is reserved for the limited test that Counter-Strike: Global Offensive players can jump into starting today.
Players will be selected to participate in this limited test by the Counter-Strike 2 development team and the choice will be made by looking at recent playtime on Valve official servers, trust factor, and Steam account standing.
Counter-Strike 2 will be running on Valve’s Source 2 engine and in the announcement Valve referred to the game as the largest technical leap forward in Counter-Strike’s history. Here’s a look at what fans of the franchise can expect from this new title:
Counter-Strike 2 will mark the fourth significant entry into the Counter-Strike franchise. The original LAN classic game was released back in 2000. Since the release of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive in 2012, the game has remained one of the most-played games on Steam and earlier this month, more than 10 years after the game first launched, CS: GO managed to break its all-time concurrent player record with 1.4 million players on Steam.