Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is one of the most popular games on Steam, but that hasn’t stopped the rumors that the game will soon receive a massive update that will transform it overnight. According to a new report by journalist Richard Lewis, sources have confirmed that a hypothetical “Counter-Strike 2” is real, and the expected release date for the beta version is March or early April.
The report suggests that this new game will be on the Source 2 engine, instead of the old original Source engine that powers Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. It will feature an improved matchmaking system and 128-tick servers, aimed at competing with its main rival in the competitive shooter space, Valorant.
It’s unclear if the two versions of Counter-Strike will co-exist, or if Valve plans to release an Overwatch and replace the original Global Offensive entirely. It’s also likely that the move to Source 2 will require higher minimum specs to work well.
Counter-Strike 2 would actually be the fifth Counter-Strike. The original Counter-Strike was a third-party mod for Valve’s seminal game Half Life. Valve bought those developers and the intellectual property rights in 2000, before releasing the mod as a standalone title that year.
4 years later, Turtle Rock Studios would create the original Counter-Strike 2 with Counter-Strike, Condition Zero, with Valve also releasing a remake of the first game later that year built on their, at the time, new Source engine.
While Counter-Strike has always had a cult following, it wasn’t until 2012’s Global Offensive that the series really took off, regularly topping Steam’s monthly charts for number of players, and being second only to PUBG: Battlegrounds in number of attendees. . .
Another multiplayer FPS game coming to Steam soon is Arkane’s Redfall, but that’s not the only store the title will be releasing on. Starting May 2, Redfall will also be available on the Xbox Store, both on console and PC for purchase or through Game Pass, as well as the Epic Games Store.
Sometimes when multiplayer games have cross-platform releases like this, like last year’s Warhammer 40K: Darktide, players get segmented by storefront. I myself, despite being able to play Darktide through a PC Game Pass subscription last fall, had to buy a copy of the game through Steam just because my friends are a picky bunch who refuse to make PC games. PC on any other platform. , which really made me rethink some of those friendships.
