On Wednesday 27th October 2023, Counter-Strike 2 was released to the public and also updated. This means that is now good bye to CS:GO which was initially released on the 21st August 2012. Just over 11 years of glorious Counter-Strike: Global Offensive has taken place. There is so much esports history within this time, and now that history will continue to be made on CS2.
Official Counter-Strike 2 Release
Valve has posted a release video on the official Counter-Strike Twitter account. Alex “Machine” Richardson is doing the voice-over for this video. In the video you can see the celebration of the game’s legacy, showcasing where it has come from to where it is today. It also discusses the features that have been in testing over the summer and that it is now available for the public.
Less than 24 hours after release, CS2 has peaked at 1,380,708 players. This has not yet gotten close to the peak seen in May 2023 which was over 1.8 million. However, we are not at the weekend yet so there is a chance for the game to exceed it’s peak numbers soon.
What was included in the Counter-Strike 2 update?
When the game was launched, Valve included a number of updates. You will see below the release notes for the game. It’s not as significant as you might expect for a game launch. Although it is to be expected when it seemed the game was rushed to be released before too long after summer, given their previous announcements.
Counter-Strike 2 Update Notes
- CS2 is now available and free to play
- Season One of Premier has started
Gameplay
- 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
Some of the most talked about points here have been the collision on movement as well as the Molotov fire now interacting correctly with water. There have been a lot of comments too about chickens now able to fall off the map on Vertigo… poor chickens.
Sound
- 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
Animation
- 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
Matchmaking
- 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
Maps
- 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
The extra bell added to Inferno has had a lot of praise from the more musical members of the community..
Miscellaneous
- 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
Workshop Tools
- 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
Has the CS2 launch been well received?
The launch of the game has so far had very mixed reviews from the community. Clearly there have been a lot of people playing it before launch. However, there are some mixed comments. What has certainly been clear is that it has been appreciated a lot more by the community that CS:GO initially was when it was launched. Counter-Strike: Global Offensive had an awful start to its life as it struggled to take players from CS 1.6 and CS:S before the skins update was released.
Counter-Strike influencer Anomaly has also had a lot to say. Some of the points he has made has had several members of the community agree:
- No DZ
- No unranked Match Making
- No short games
- Maps missing
Also the likes of S1mple have been complaining about the tickrate of the game feeling like it is at 16. When it is meant to be at 128. And lastly, it appears there are users who are on Mac who have struggled with playing the game too.
That being said, there is also positive feedback too. Player counts has been good. There have been interesting additions to in-game drops where users can select between 4 options when they are lucky enough to be eligible for a drop.
It’s definitely a rocky start for Counter-Strike 2, but this is to be expected. It does not seem quite as drama-filled as Overwatch 2’s launch.
What is happening with Counter-Strike tournaments?
Many tournaments that were playing on CS:GO are now forced to stop. While some high level tournament operators might still have access to the game, many lower tier events can no longer host on CS:GO. This means that teams are now forced to move over to Counter-Strike 2 and update their playstyle to reflect the new game.
It’s definitely a pivotal point in the history of Counter-Strike and is likely going to shake up the balance of teams significantly. Over the following months we will likely find out more about which top players are failing to adapt, and which players are succeeding from the game changing so significantly.
Can I bet on CS2?
It is definitely possible to bet on CS2 already. Some tournaments such as Gamers Club Liga are already on CS2. However, it is still taking a moment for tournament operators and bookmakers to calibrate themselves to the new game. There is certainly a big question over how data is going to be acquired to manage odds trading. While all the esports betting sites are getting used to the new game, this could be an interesting period to profit while everyone is learning as much about the new game as possible. Do note that there still tournaments taking place on the older game, so you can still bet on CS:GO for now.
The next few weeks will be tremendously interesting to see how players, teams, tournament operators, bookmakers and bettors update their approach to the new era of Counter-Strike 2.
