The Counter-Strike community has speculated on a dozen different release dates for CS2 since the closed beta kicked off in March and everybody got it wrong. By the looks of it, Valve is getting ready to release CS2 at the end of September 2023.
Though the game looks like CS:GO at first glance, Valve made a lot of changes to make CS2 a unique product. If you, like me, can’t wait to play a lot of CS2, here’s everything you need to know about its release date and what to new Counter-Strike title brings to the table.
Is there a Counter-Strike 2 release date?
On Wednesday, Sept. 27, Valve changed the Counter-Strike Twitter account banner to “dawn of a new day,” once again teasing Sept. 27 as CS2‘s release date.
Before teasing the CS2 launch for Sept. 27, Valve revealed on Sept. 13 that CS2 will launch “soon.” This announcement was made through Steam’s 20th birthday page.
On Wednesday, Sept. 20, the official Counter-Strike Twitter account asked what are people doing on Wednesday, Sept. 27. This inevitably led fans to think that CS2 is coming out on Sept. 27.
Has the CS2 release date been confirmed?
No, the release date for CS2 hasn’t been confirmed. The community, however, thinks Valve wouldn’t be teasing Sept. 27 if it wasn’t true, given that the developer has kept its lips shut for more than six months and refused to share updates.
Was CS2 delayed?
CS2 hasn’t been delayed as far as we know. Valve said when the closed beta started in March that CS2 would launch in the summer of 2023, but the developer never disclosed if it was talking about summer in the U.S. or elsewhere.
What’s in CS2?
CS2 runs on game engine Source 2, which is much more up-to-date than CS:GO’s Source 1. In theory, this should allow Valve to make deeper changes down the road and keep the game optimized for modern PCs.
Because of the Source 2 engine, CS2 is better than CS:GO in terms of graphics, and all the maps look more beautiful.
As for gameplay changes, the most noticeable ones are the way smokes behave in CS2, filling an entire space and showing the same to all players, the switch to 24 rounds instead of 30 in competitive, and a new competitive matchmaking mode in the form of Premier.
On top of that, Valve also implemented a few quality-of-life changes such as adding custom weapon loadouts—which allow players to play with the M4A4 and the M4A1-S during the same match—and a refund option in the buy menu.
Since the start of CS2‘s closed beta, Valve kept updating the game and collecting feedback. Now, it looks like the developer is finally ready to release the game worldwide.
