Thursday, September 28th 2023
Counter-Strike 2 is Now Officially Out
Valve's Counter-Strike 2 is now officially available, replacing Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Describing it as "the largest technical leap forward in Counter-Strike's history, ensuring new features and updates for years to come." Announced back in March, Counter-Strike 2 brings plenty of new features, updated maps, and more.
In a blog post announcing the availability, Valve says that returning players will find their favorite maps and matchmaking modes, as well as a revamped Premier mode for the new CS Rating. The biggest update is the sub-tick architecture, promising that the server will now know "the exact instant that motion starts, a shot is fired, or a 'nade is thrown." Valve also released the new patch, launching the game and bringing some fixes and new features and modes that were previously unavailable.
Counter-Strike 2 already has very positive reviews over at Steam, and it is already at the top of the "top seller" list, leaving behind Cyberpunk 2077, Dota 2, and PUBG: Battlegrounds. Counter-Strike: Global Offensive managed to hit a peak of 1,8 million concurrent players in April, so it remains to be seen if Counter-Strike 2 will be able to break that record.
Here are the full release notes for the latest patch.
COUNTER-STRIKE 2
Source:
Counter Strike
In a blog post announcing the availability, Valve says that returning players will find their favorite maps and matchmaking modes, as well as a revamped Premier mode for the new CS Rating. The biggest update is the sub-tick architecture, promising that the server will now know "the exact instant that motion starts, a shot is fired, or a 'nade is thrown." Valve also released the new patch, launching the game and bringing some fixes and new features and modes that were previously unavailable.
Here are the full release notes for the latest patch.
COUNTER-STRIKE 2
- Counter-Strike 2 is now available and free to play
- Season One of Premier has begun
- Enabled Competitive matchmaking
- Enabled Wingman matchmaking
- Enabled Private Matchmaking
- Added Training Day, a brief introductory experience for brand new players
- Improved player-against-player movement collision
- Improved consistency of bullet penetration
- Player reflections in water are now occluded by smoke
- Molotov fire now floats above the water
- Fixed character ambient occlusion being visible through walls
- C4 bomb lights don't reflect through walls
- Fixed some rare cases of viewmodel lighting corruption
- Adjusted smoke behavior to cover cases where smoke would stop less than a player's height above the ground
- Fix various bugs with switching teams in the middle of offline Deathmatch
- Fixed Famas reloading too early
- Chickens can finally fall off Vertigo
- Added the new CS2 default music kit
- Added new audio customization settings
- Various mix tweaks and adjustments
- Various bug fixes related to music kits
- Updated the game startup sound
- Added background ambience to main menu scenes
- Restored the clutch_mode_toggle function
- Fixed a bug where sometimes c4 defuse and planting sounds could not be heard in certain locations
- Fixed some surfaces being incorrectly tagged causing incorrect footstep sounds in certain locations
- Fixed a bug where attackers could not hear headshot feedback through wallbangs or smokes
- Body damage feedback for attackers will now play within the same distance as it does for onlookers through smokes and wallbangs
- Fixed a bug where scoping in affected directional sound
- First person damage sounds are now more impactful
- Removed several legacy audio convars that existed in CS:GO but never had an effect in CS2
- Adjusted character additive lean animation
- Adjusted jump animation, particularly when repeatedly jumping
- Adjusted jiggle-peeking animation
- Adjusted animated character head position relative to camera position
- Added bullet belt to negev
- Reduced foot sliding when carrying slower weapons
- Fixed character momentarily standing during crouch-planting animation
- Fixed incorrect viewmodel deploy speeds
- Fixed pops in some weapon inspect animations
- Inspecting weapons may now interrupt deploy animation
- When one or more party members get convicted of cheating and permanently banned, all their associates will be penalized with loss of Profile Rank and CS Rating
- In Premier, players with a very high established CS Rating are not allowed to party with accounts that do not have an established CS Rating
- Various bug fixes and tweaks for all shipped maps
- Adjusted vertical audio occlusion boundaries in Nuke and Vertigo
- Added an extra bell in Inferno
- Casual and Deathmatch maps are now separated into multiple map groups
- CS:GO Players who started playing more than a week ago will receive a commemorative CS:GO coin and CS:GO Music Kit
- Added Store tab to main menu
- Enabled all interactions with inventory items
- Replaced weekly drops with a weekly Care Package. Choose from weapon cases, weapon finishes, and graffiti
- Added demo playback support
- Added the ability to favorite and shuffle loadout items
- Added new item icons
- Office and Vertigo are available as main menu scenery
- Various updates for weapon finishes, including fixing overly strong wear on several Custom Paint Job finishes
- Reworked Phoenix Street Soldier balaclava texture to resolve visibility issues
- Enabled animated eyes on agent character models
- Game clients running in workshop tools mode are not allowed to connect to VAC secure game servers
- Added an all-new help system featuring contextually relevant guides and information. Guides include gray scale value ranges for alpha channel masking, paint-by-number mask color assignments based on current finish type, and much more!
- Removed dynamic props from solid color inspect backgrounds
11 Comments on Counter-Strike 2 is Now Officially Out
My understanding is that CS:GO remains playable. It has been moved to a beta branch and requires connection to a community server.
So no, Valve did not pull an Overwatch move.
The fact that returning players can still enjoy their favorite maps and modes is a great touch, while the revamped Premier mode with the new CS Rating system adds a fresh competitive edge. I can't wait to see how the game's new technical improvements enhance the overall experience.