Counter-Strike 2
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Counter-Strike 2 (also colloquially referred to as CS:GO Source 2 prior to announcement, and CS2 for short) is a video game developed by Valve. Announced on March 22, it was planned to be released around Summer 2023, but later it was delayed to September 27, 2023. The game is a remaster of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive with new graphics, new contents and technical improvements, including the sub-tick update. It is developed in Valve’s own Source 2 engine, the successor to Source. Prior to its release, Valve added users via CS:GO's game menu to the playtest.
This game was released on September 27th, 2023, completely replacing Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. However this does not apply to the console version of CS:GO (for PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360), which remains available for purchase.
The game was generally positively received by critics. Player response to the game was however, mixed, primarily as a result of removed content (e.g. Danger Zone) and features that CS:GO had, CS:GO being delisted on the store, and the game being incompatible with older PCs and macOS, or having performance and other technical issues. The Metacritic user reviews were later review bombed, alongside with Steam, which caused the recent reviews to briefly drop to "Mixed".
Counter-Strike 2 also has a China version (by Perfect World), which is still referred as 反恐精英：全球攻势 (Counter-Strike: Global Offensive), both in-game and Steam China.
Features
New features introduced in Counter-Strike 2 including:
- Volumetric smokes
- Smokes are now volumetric objects that can be pushed by grenades, bullets, and more. It also reacts to lighting and the smokes fill the spaces naturally.
- Sub-tick system
- Tick rate no longer matters for moving, shooting, or throwing.
- Improved Steam Audio
- Sounds have been reworked to better reflect the physical environment, be more distinct, and express more game state. They have also been rebalanced for a more comfortable listening experience.
- Hardware accelerated ray-tracing for VRAD
- VRAD3 now requires graphics card (NVIDIA RTX, AMD RX series) with ray-tracing support to preview & bake lighting. This will allow VRAD to quickly calculates lighting data. VRAD3 was also available on older Source 2 games.
- CMAA anti-aliasing
- Replacement for FXAA. Another post-processing anti-aliasing method which was sharper than FXAA. Unlike FXAA, CMAA in Counter-Strike 2 cannot be used alongside MSAA.
- Nvidia Reflex
- NVIDIA Reflex aims to reduces system latency, and makes keyboard & mouse movement more responsive.
Tools
- Hammer - GPU Ray Tracing & Path Tracing preview
- Preview baked lighting with RT-capable graphics card (NVIDIA RTX & AMD RX 6000 or later series).
Content
- Counter-Strike 2 (game\csgo)
- Counter-Strike 2 Windows binaries
- Counter-Strike 2 Linux binaries
Game modes
Counter-Strike 2 removes Danger Zone, Demolition, Flying Scoutsman and Retakes from CS:GO. The following game modes are available:
Note:Most information here are from CS:GO, which may also applies to CS2.| Official Game Mode | Match length | Penalties for abandoning? |
Description of official Gameplay | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Competitive | 20-90 minutes | Yes | The classic game mode: Two teams of 5 players fight in a best of 24 rounds. In Bomb Defusal scenarios, Terrorists must plant a bomb at a target and defend it until it explodes - Counter-Terrorists must either stop them from planting or defuse the bomb before it detonates. In Hostage Rescue scenarios, Counter-Terrorists must find and escort a hostage - Terrorists must stop them. There are skill groups for ranked matchmaking so that ideally players are matched with enemies of a similar skill level. In unranked matchmaking, these skill groups are also regarded but not adjusted. |
|
Wingman | 10-30 minutes | Yes | Like Competitive, but adjusted for 2v2 and for a smaller map or a map section, best of 16 rounds, rounds are shorter. |
|
Casual | 10-20 minutes | No | Like Competitive but not binding ("casual"), with simplified and shortened gameplay: best of 15 rounds, shorter freezetime per round, no friendly fire, no team collision, free armor and free defuse kit/cutters. |
|
Deathmatch
|
10 minutes | No | This is a single 10 minute round with instant respawns. The player's goal is to eliminate as many enemies as possible with whatever weapon they wish to use. Weapons are free and only rifles, SMGs, heavy weapons, pistols and the Zeus x27 may be bought. Players have a short invulnerability period to buy weapons before moving. |
| War Games | ||||
|
Arms Race | 5-10 minutes | Yes | This is a single extended round with instant respawn. All players start with the same weapon and get a new one each time they kill an enemy. The progression of unlocked weapons ends with the knife. The first player to get two kills with every weapon plus a kill with the golden knife wins the match. |
Built-in Maps
Like previous Counter-Strike games, Counter-Strike 2 adds, removes, enhancing or completely remake maps from previous titles.
Weapons
As of the release of Counter-Strike 2, there are currently no new weapons introduced. However, the smoke that comes from the smoke grenade now can be pushed by bullets, grenades to briefly clear sightlines or expand occlusion, plus can collides with the world objects, as smoke grenades are now dynamic volumetric objects compare to sprites used in previous games. Some weapons, such as all weapons from Danger Zone gamemode, were either removed or left unused as Counter-Strike 2 currently does not have Danger Zone.
Buy Menu
| Pistol | SMG | Heavy | Rifle | Equipment | Grenade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Other
| Knives | Miscellaneous |  Co-op Strike
|
|---|---|---|
|
Giving Weapons
Note:This section contains info such as VScript (which is non-functional in CS2), and certain commands, that only applies to CS2 predecessor, CS:GO, and may not apply or works with CS2 as these were either removed or currently unused/non-functional.To give yourself a weapon, you can use the cheat command give <entityname>, which should spawn a specified weapon inside the executing player, for example give weapon_awp. Knives and Danger Zone melees might instantly be removed by the game when they would spawn; To overcome this, one can use the command sequence give <entityname>; ent_fire <entityname> addoutput "classname weapon_knifegg" (in one line!) so that the entity "becomes" an entity that is not removed by the game in the same tick. Note that some weapons have a different classname after being given, e.g. give weapon_axe; ent_fire weapon_melee addoutput "classname weapon_knifegg".
Map driven item giving can be done with game_player_equip. To equip weapons using VScript, a game_player_equip entity can be created, used and removed.
Manipulating Weapons
Weapons can be manipulated via I/O, e.g. with ent_fire, and even more using VScript. All weapon entities support the inputs Kill, SetAmmoAmount <int>, SetReserveAmmoAmount <int>, ToggleCanBePickedUp, for example the command ent_fire weapon_ak47 kill removes all AK-47s in the map. To give some inspiration, if weapon is the VScript handle of a weapon entity, we can use weapon.Destroy() to kill it, weapon.GetOwner() == null to check whether it is dropped (true) or carried by a player (false), EntFireByHandle(weapon, "SetReserveAmmoAmount", "0", 0, null, null) to remove its reserve ammo and much more.
Note:When the weapon is killed that a player has deployed, their viewmodel will be broken until they deploy another weapon.
Tip:There are weapon classes whose entities initially have an identical classname keyvalue after being spawned, even though they were created from different classnames. This makes it impossible to target only one of these weapon classes in the I/O system such as MP5-SD and MP7 entities, because entities of both classes will have the classname "weapon_mp7" after being spawned, so firing I/O events to weapon_mp5sd won't have any effect because there is no entity with that classname. This problem can be bypassed in VScript: If we find an entity with the classname "weapon_mp7", we can identify whether it is actually an MP5-SD or an MP7 by checking whether entity.GetModelName() returns either "models/weapons/w_smg_mp5sd_dropped.mdl" or "models/weapons/w_smg_mp7_dropped.mdl". Other entities whose classname changes on spawn are the USP-S, CZ75-Auto, R8 Revolver, M4A1-S, Rescue Kit, Wrench, Hammer, Axe and all knives except weapon_knife and weapon_knifegg.
Gallery
You can see some screenshots from the game below. To see all screenshots and brand files, you can go to Counter-Strike 2 gallery or category with all Counter-Strike 2 related files and pages.
Limitations/Bugs
Important: Counter-Strike 2 is not available for 
macOS. As a result, since Oct 10, 2023, users may receive (CS:GO), via the csgo_legacy branch instead of CS2. Prior to that date, users will have the Windows version of CS2 downloaded to the Mac systems, which is non-functional without using Game Porting Toolkit (or Wine), running Windows on Mac via Boot Camp (Intel Macs only) or using virtualization software.
Later it is confirmed that Valve has dropped support for macOS entirely, users who cannot run Counter-Strike 2 on Mac systems will be offered for Prime Status Upgrade refund[1], which is no longer available as of December 2, 2023.
Known issues
- Counter-Strike 2 Workshop Tools has few critical or minor bugs, including one that can cause memory leak and prevent VRAD3 from working. See more about these in the issues list.
To report a Counter-Strike 2 bug or search for existing issues, visit this GitHub issue page.
Note:The link above leads to CS:GO Bug Report for Mac/Linux, but as of around 2017-2020, this applies to all platforms (including Windows), and both CS:GO & CS2.Note:Unlike Source-1-games or halflife (GoldSrc) repo, this issue page is not meant for feature requests.System Requirements
Note:Unofficially works on Windows 7 - 8.1 until Steam drops support for these operating systems along with the Steam API update with the game in 2024. Support will not be provided for these operating systems however.Please note that using these operating systems may cause issues related to  VAC.Note:Requires CPU with SSE4.2 support, 64-bit OS and DirectX 11 (or optionally, Vulkan) compatible card, systems with 32-bit or DirectX 9 only card may chose to download the Legacy version of CS:GO instead if their hardware is incompatible, via the Beta tab on Steam Library. | |||||||||||||||||||||
Steam's ICheatReportingService API: ReportPlayerCheating
Note:Steam provides various APIs for developers to manage their games and communities, one of which is ICheatReportingService. This API allows developers to report players suspected of cheating in their games through the ReportPlayerCheating method. The ReportPlayerCheating method enables game servers, moderators, or developers to send reports to Steam’s anti-cheat system regarding suspected cheaters. These reports contribute to improving Steam’s security ecosystem by supporting detection and prevention mechanisms such as Valve Anti-Cheat (VAC) or in-game security systems. VAC.How is This API Used?
- Developers can utilize this API to: (api.steampowered.com/ICheatReportingService/ReportCheatData/v1/)
- Report players based on evidence of cheating in the game.
- Integrate automated systems that send reports to Steam based on suspicious behavior patterns.
- Maintain a fair gaming ecosystem by providing data to anti-cheat systems.
See also
- Counter-Strike 2 Workshop Tools
- Counter-Strike 2 Dedicated Servers
- Footstep Audio in CS2: A Guide
- FPS in CS2: Tips and Tricks
- Spray Control in CS2: A New Guide
External links
- Website
- Updates & Patch Notes (previous post will contain both CS:GO and CS2 post)
- Steam Store page
- Counter-Strike 2 on Counter-Strike Wiki (FANDOM)
Counter-Strike 2 on Wikipedia- About playtest. https://steamcommunity.com/faqs/steam-help/view/5ED2-ED8E-81F4-0C18
References
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