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Counter-Strike 2 is a major free upgrade to the Counter-Strike: Global Offense (CS:GO) game. Whereas CS:GO was based on the Source game engine, the upgrade to CS2 makes the game shift to the newer Source 2 engine, which Valve’s other games use already, including Dota 2 and Half-Life: Alyx.
It’s important to note that CS2 is not a separate game, standalone download, or sequel to the original game. It’s a major upgrade over the base game itself. Anyone who had CS:GO in their library will automatically get the replacement CS2 instead, regardless of whether the game is installed on the device or not.
The game is already making waves—Setting new player records on Steam with many old-time gamers who have long left the game returning to see what’s new.
It won’t be an overstatement to say that the release marks an unprecedented and remarkable turn in the world of the tactical first-person shooter genre. In fact, even the betting websites are starting to enlist the new title officially, and you can already bet on CS2 at Thunderpick.
Among the improvements, the game now has:
The update is 27GB in size.
Players will find all the items already available in the new game, and everything else preserved. However, many maps and modes are gone.
In fact, players have already begun to show their disappointment by taking to Twitter/X and Reddit. Among the many things that have been removed, some include:
The game does feature significantly overhauled graphics and the previous version of Global Offensive has been entirely replaced, and can only be played as an offline demo now.
There have also been leaks suggesting that some of the missing maps and features will make it back to the game at a later date. Valve has also patched the game since release, fixing some issues that were disconcerting players during the first few hours of launch. The patch also fixed the issue of a single player on a team being able to force a surrender vote. After the patch, it will take the majority of the team to initiate a surrender vote, giving rest to those pesky trolls.
Players were also unhappy that there had been no new content with the upgrade and that the hype surrounding the CS2 upgrade hadn’t fully been justified with the launch.
Even though pro players are remarking that the game is playable, it’s not ready for competitive matches. The complaint stems from the many artifacts of bullets not landing where they are supposed to and collisions not going through when playing the game.
On the other hand, many players have defended and even applauded the slew of improvements and visual overhaul of the new upgrade, further commenting that we need to wait longer to see more features and bug fixes.
It remains to be seen how the new upgrade will affect the player base and the game’s reception in the FPS community, especially the regular Counter-Strike fan.
The new upgrade features brand-new graphics and art for the game, including a completely revamped official website. Inside the game, players are now free to witness the many improvements—Some small and some big.
Overall, the CS2 upgrade makes the whole experience better for gamers, breathing fresh life into a game that was originally released back in 2012, being the third major release in the Counter-Strike series and the sixth overall release:
Out of the most important features introduced with the CS2 free upgrade is the ability to refund items that you purchased mistakenly. This has been a long-demanded feature that the developers finally gave the gamers.
Notably, the game was announced by Valve back in March and was supposed to launch in the summer. Out of the many performance optimizations that were either teased or expected by gamers, some have made it into the new game whereas other features are still not in sight. Though the beta for the CS2 game went on for months, the release was full of bugs and glitches such as shader issues on AMD machines, water looking black in screenshots, and map-specific artifacts (particularly in Nuke, Vertigo, Anubis, and Overpass).
If you have any questions about the game at all, remember you’re always welcome to start a discussion in our Playground forum.
