By: SEAN YANG
Staff Writer
Counter-Strike is probably the greatest tactical FPS of all time. From the olden days of CS 1.6 in the early 2000s and the movement shenanigans that began with CS: Source to the global emergence and subsequent domination of esports in the 2010s with the arrival of CS: GO in 2012, the franchise has always been a massively popular and competitive force when it comes to the FPS genre. Without its existence, it is highly likely that esports as a whole would not have gained as much traction in the 2010s. However, it is no secret that the Source engine, which CS: GO is built upon, is quite outdated, being nearly nineteen years old now. After eleven years of service and the recent loss of players due to competition by Valorant—a newer, similar title inspired by CS mechanics—the announcement of Counter-Strike 2 is seen by many to be a breath of fresh air for the series.
Set to release in the summer of this year, CS2 will be based on the Source 2 engine, the successor to the Source engine, which has made titles such as Dota 2 and Half-Life: Alyx. Along with its announcement this March has come a limited-access beta for the game for playtesting and bug fixing as well as breaking CS: GO’s old concurrent player peak record of one million with more than 1.5M players actively playing at one time. Valve has stated that access to CS2 is judged based off of official Valve server playtime at the time of the announcement as well as good account standing and high trust factor, a matchmaking method to group players with similar sportsmanship as each other. People have taken issue with these prerequisites because many dedicated, high-level players do not play on official Valve servers—instead, they play on third-party servers and platforms that aim to provide competitive levels of play far higher than that in Valve matchmaking such as FACEIT.
What new mechanics is CS2 bringing to the table? Along with huge graphical and visibility improvements, Valve has focused on three main aspects: smoke grenades, map upgrades, and tick rate. Smoke grenades will fill in gaps and respond to bullets and HE grenades, creating infinitely dynamic scenarios when smoke is involved. People have already exploited this new mechanic, using grenades to clear up smoke temporarily in order to surprise their enemies. Maps have also been upgraded and overhauled. Valve has divided them into three categories: touchstone maps, which are given the Source 2 glow-up but without any real changes; upgrade maps, which have the new Source 2 lighting and rendering built in; and fully overhauled maps, which have been completely rebuilt in the Source 2 engine. Last, but certainly not least, is the tick rate. CS: GO, for nearly all of its existence, has been plagued by a divide in tick rate—how many times per second the game server updates. Official Valve servers use 64-tick, meaning that players will send information and receive updates 64 times a second. Third-party competitive platforms such as FACEIT, however, use 128-tick. This results in an overall more responsive, smoother experience for all players. CS2 has decided to do away with this system. Instead, CS2 will use a sub-tick system, which means that players will receive updates from the server practically instantly. Moving, shooting, and throwing grenades will always feel the same and be one-hundred percent consistent. Some playtesters have expressed doubt about this system—for many, the game still feels like it is running at 64-tick despite this new sub-tick update system.
All in all, CS2 will, despite practically being a port of CS: GO to Source 2, again revolutionize both the tactical FPS market and the new tactics and strategies that will develop in the highest levels of competition. What with its new smokes which will be exploited to its maximum potential, sub-tick updates that will no longer divide matchmaking and third-party platforms, and map upgrades that will make visibility so much easier for players while making the game itself look modern and cutting-edge, it is certain that this successor will leave its mark much the same way CS: GO did in 2012.