It looks like Counter-Strike 2 is releasing next week, if a lightly cryptic tweet from the official Counter-Strike Twitter is anything to do by.
It’s a typically short tweet from the Valve-controlled Counter-Strike account, simply reading "What are you doing next Wednesday?" While it’s entirely possible Valve is very excited about the second episode of Celebrity Race Across the World on BBC iPlayer, somehow we doubt it. Instead, it’s far more likely Valve is planning something big for the Counter-Strike community.
Counter-Strike 2 is currently running as a "Limited Test" closed beta. You need an invite to join it, which has only fuelled the hype for many longtime CS players. While it’s possible the announcement is for an open beta, it makes more sense that a final release is coming. Valve always intended to launch CS2 in summer, and recently said the game would be launching "soon." So while it’s possible it’s not a launch, it seems unlikely.
CS2, while a numbered update, is more of a large patch for CS:Go. Players will be able to directly transfer their item library over to the new game, and outside of some much lauded updates for smoke grenades (smoke now fills spaces accurately), and a lowered ping rate, the game is largely expected to continue what made CS:GO great, rather than a rebuild from the ground up. Those who watch from the outside, or casual players, may not get what CS players are getting excited about, but those who know their CS claim that the changes and updates within CS2 are very big indeed.
Counter-Strike 2 is the, rather confusingly, ninth entry in the Counter-Strike series, and the sequel to the immensely popular Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. CS:GO was released over a decade ago now, so the follow-up has been long-awaited. If the tweet is to be read the way that we and many others have chosen to read it, it looks like the wait is finally over. We’ll be keeping our peepers peeled for next week, and we’re sure that the release won’t be a quiet event on Steam.