Valve announces the arrival of Counter-Strike 2 coming this summer

Valve Corporation, the developers of the popular game Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO), has announced the arrival of Counter-Strike 2. The game is set to launch in the summer of 2023 and will run on the Source Engine 2. Although an exact release date is yet to be confirmed, it has been confirmed that it will be a free upgrade to CS:GO. In addition, Valve has also opened up limited testing to a limited number of lucky CS:GO players.

Valve has said that Counter-Strike 2 will bring the "largest technical leap forward" in the history of the Counter-Strike franchise. The game will have updated maps that have been rebuilt from the ground up and feature new tools and rendering features. Furthermore, Counter-Strike 2 will also have "game-changing" smoke grenades that interact with other gameplay events, expand to fill spaces naturally, and react to lightning. The game will also have redesigned visual effects and audio.

One of the most significant changes in Counter-Strike 2 is that it will have tick-rate-independent gameplay. This means that regardless of the tick rate, a player's movement and shooting will always be equally responsive, and grenades will always land the same way.

Valve has also announced that all of a player's items from CS:GO will carry over to Counter-Strike 2. This news comes after rumors about Counter-Strike 2's development started circulating earlier this month. Journalist and Counter-Strike caster Richard Lewis had suggested that Valve was preparing to announce the project.