CS2's first year anniversary

On this day the 27th of September last year (2023), Valve took down Counter-Strike: Global Offensive that had stood for around 11 years and announced the full public release of the next addition to the Counter-Strike family- Counter-Strike 2.

The game now leveraged powerful, sophisticated Source 2 tools and introduced new concepts such as volumetric and responsive smokes.

The game had been in months of beta testing prior to it's launch in September 2023 and the launch itself was received with mixed emotions in the community due to the condition of the sub-tick system at the time. It also had to do with many game modes being removed. When the game made it's appearance in first March 2023, the community expected the full release to come with a lot of new content and game modes, which didn't happen.

Fast forward to today and Counter-Strike 2 has received it's fair share of updates but a problem that had plagued Counter-Strike: Global Offensive- cheating has increased in scale. Valve have given out little to no information on their anti-cheat and VAC live is still slowly exiting it's learning phase.

Five months from it's launch, Counter-Strike 2 received it's first weapons case along with the reintroduction of the arms race game mode in February 2024. The first Counter-Strike 2 Major's Pick'EMs also received a revamp.

Apart from UI/UX updates and hotfixes every now and then, Valve seems to be taking their time to address crucial issues such as bugs related to water, ragdolls, hitboxes, the sub-tick system and the barely functional anti-cheat. Many game modes like Danger Zone still remain absent as we are on the brink of Counter-Strike 2's second Major in Shanghai this November.