It’s been over two decades since the original Counter-Strike game launched and became one of the world’s most popular and memorable competitive shooters, but a fully fledged sequel is supposedly just around the corner. According to a new report from Richard Lewis, a journalist who is best known for his long record of Counter-Strike-related stories, including 2015’s match-fixing scandal, a new installment dubbed Counter-Strike 2 is not only real, but about to be unveiled soon, with a beta dropping as early as this month. Built on the Source 2 engine, some of Counter-Strike 2’s new features are said to include an improved match-making system, as well as 128-tick servers.
From a Richard Lewis report:
The sources explained that the creation of the game had been something of a priority for Valve’s team, which includes members that have overseen development of previous iterations in the Counter-Strike franchise. This, they said, should explain why some issues with CS:GO have been largely unattended to for some time. “The big priority is getting this out and then polishing it, fixing any bugs and bringing it up to the level people expect from CS.”
Specific details of the game included that it will, of course, be on the Source 2 engine, a move that should improve the optimisation and graphical fidelity of the game. That is likely to come at a cost of performance for players with low-end PCs, although Valve historically has always had a philosophy of empowering those with every-day gaming rigs to be able to play their games.
The big question for the community has been whether or not official servers would be 128 tick bringing it in line with rival title Valorant. The sources confirmed that this would be the case and that this feature would likely be ready at the launch of the beta.
The game is also set to include a much improved match-making system with features that it is hoped would make the need for third party pugging services unnecessary. Currently the community has had to suffer from uneven match-making and long times between rank ups. Most who want an experience more closely aligned with that of a competitive player are typically advised to sign-up for third party services such as FACEIT. These features will be an ongoing work in progress but the beta will launch with similar match-making features that are available in the current version of CS:GO.