Counter-Strike 2 has been officially announced, as Valve confirms the game with a series of reveal trailers.
Mere days after reports threw up evidence that Valve is working on a new Counter-Strike, the firm goes and formally announces it.
In fact, Counter-Strike 2 not only exists – it’s almost finished, with a release pegged for summer 2023.
We know this because a trio of promo trailers have emerged, each dealing with a new aspect of Valve’s multiplayer shooter.
One deals with the graphical upgrades we’ll see in Counter-Strike 2, with existing maps given improved lighting and texture while retaining the layouts that fans have spent years memorising.
Next, there’s a video dedicated to smoke grenades, and how they create dynamic 3D smoke that reacts to objects and lighting within a stage. Smoke will also look consistent on every player’s system.
The third and final video deals with Counter-Strike’s time intervals, or ticks – in other words, the delay between players’ movements and shots and the server registering them. Counter-Strike 2 will introduce ‘sub-tick updates’, which should ensure more precision during matches.
Counter-Strike 2 looks as detailed and tasty-looking as we’d expect from a multiplayer shooter released in 2023, though it’s notable how the colour palette on the improved maps looks subtly brighter and cleaner than they did in the past – a reflection, perhaps, of how visual tastes have changed since Counter-Strike was first released.
Counter-Strike remains one of the jewels in Valve’s portfolio, with the venerable shooter still enjoying a loyal following among its players – Counter Strike: Global Offensive even managed to break its own player record in February, with 1.3 million users all logging in concurrently.
Previous rumours suggested that Counter-Strike 2 beta could launch in March or “April 1st at the outside.” With the shooter set to launch this summer, it follows that we should see the beta announced fairly soon.
