Counter-Strike 2 Reportedly Releasing This Week

Counter-Strike 2 is reportedly releasing as soon as this week. Valve is one of the biggest developers out there, but fans have been very critical of the fact that the developer has massively slowed down its output on games over the last decade or so. After Portal 2, Valve's output on new games grinded to almost a total screeching halt. Part of this is because staff gets to choose what they work on at the studio and a lot of folks have been committed to updating existing games or working on new hardware. Valve has been releasing things like new VR hardware, the Steam Deck, and more. We did get Half-Life: Alyx in there, but that was a rarity. Now, we are getting Counter-Strike 2 after a decade of Global Offensive.

Counter-Strike 2 was officially announce earlier this year and has been highly anticipated by fans of the series. While you can expect it to still be Counter-Strike at its core, it is getting some huge graphical upgrades that will create a much more advanced and immersive experience. Although the previous game is hardly bad and has been updated overtime, this will allow for a much needed overhaul. There have been playtests for the new game all-summer long with a tentative release window of summer 2023 for everyone else. It is now officially fall and Valve appears to be teasing a release of Counter-Strike 2 tomorrow, September 27th. The developer teased a Wednesday release last week and followed it up today by changing the banner on the official Twitter account to "Dawn of the Final Day". On top of that, there has been some activity on the Steam back end that suggests a full launch this week and Dr Disrespect claimed industry friends told him the game would drop this week.

New Counterstrike banner, CS2 COMING SOON pic.twitter.com/zP27mcl9CR

— Jake Lucky (@JakeSucky) September 26, 2023

Since I designed half the maps for Call of Duty Advanced Warfare, I made a few industry calls and got the info we needed…

CS2 launches tomorrow.

— Dr Disrespect (@DrDisrespect) September 26, 2023

Judging by their recent actions, devs are going for a full release. The next few months are going to be fun. "Game is not ready, give us previous version it was perfect, split the community". Prepare for unforeseen consequences. https://t.co/JU0FUB1nsQ pic.twitter.com/jsucSwlkqZ

— ‎Gabe Follower (@gabefollower) September 26, 2023

As of right now, we have no idea how this will roll out. Sending every single person to a brand new game seems like a recipe for disaster on the servers, but hopefully, it will all pan out. Some fans are still concerned that Counter-Strike 2 isn't quite ready to leave beta, but hopefully, it will come out in a polished state. The only other major shooter releasing this fall is Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, which generally appeals to a different crowd so it's likely both will be able to succeed without hurting each in any notable way.