Counter Strike 2 Receives First Big Update Before Summer Release Window

Counter Strike 2, the sequel to Valve’s biggest title was announced a few months ago in 2023. The title is in a limited play-testing phase at the moment as Valve is busy making fixes to present a more polished game when it releases. The release of Counter Strike 2 would also mark the end of the CS:GO Majors era, with a CS 2 Majors scheduled for 2024.

Counter-Strike 2 Update

As mentioned, the game is in a limited testing phase where developers are still trying to work out bugs, glitches, issues, gameplay changes, etc. After quite some time since the announcement, we have seen the first big update to the title. This update was released on June 6 and provided new changes to Maps, Workshop Tools, Weapons, Sub-Tick, Volumetric Smoke, Animation, Sound, Rendering, Input and Vac.

Any 5 pistols, any 5 mid-tier weapons, and any 5 rifles. Today’s Counter-Strike 2 update introduces a revised loadout system where players select 15 weapons from 3 categories on CT and T-side to bring with them into matches. Including the M4A4 and M4A1-S. pic.twitter.com/enl7mW9qnT

— CS2 (@CounterStrike) June 6, 2023

Maps

Mirage will replace Dust II on the CS 2 limited testing servers.

Workshop Tools

CS 2 Workshop Tools have just been introduced and these can be used by community contributors to create weapon finishes, stickers and maps. Players can enable and download the tools from the in-game settings menu.

Hammer level editor will also leverage GPU accelerated raytracing for lighting on CS 2 maps. Through this change, players can save a lot on compile times, but players will need a GPU capable of ray tracing. Players would require at least a Nvidia 2060 Ti or AMD 6800XT GPU to make use of the CS 2 Workshop Tools.

Weapons

Weapon Loadout sees some massive changes as players now have 1 starting pistol, 4 pistol slots, 5 mid-tier slots (SMG and Heavy) and 5 rifle slots per team. Players can assign any appropriate weapons to this slot, which can also be done through drag-and-drop.

Bought the wrong thing? Meant to buy a different weapon, armor, or grenade? Sell your purchase back and buy again (during buy time). pic.twitter.com/7KJ4WN82XU

— CS2 (@CounterStrike) June 6, 2023

During the buy period, the buy wheel has now been replaced by a grid showing players all the buy options at once. Teammate purchases can also be viewed on the buy menu. Weapon “stats” are now just straightforward descriptions. Players can also refund any purchase in the same round if they haven’t used the weapon.

Players will find all the other changes to Sub-Tick, Volumetric Smoke, Animation, Sound, Rendering, Input, VAC and other future updates to CS 2 here.