And the time all Counter-Strike fans have been waiting for has finally come. Valve has just released Counter-Strike 2 on Steam as a free upgrade for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Yeap, CS2 is out now, it’s free, and you can download it right now.
Counter-Strike 2 features overhauled graphics and maps. Valve has rebuilt from the ground up numerous maps, leveraging all of the new Source 2 tools and rendering features. Furthermore, the team has upgraded other maps that use new Source 2 lighting, including a physically based rendering system that produces realistic materials, lighting, and reflections.
Moreover, Valve will release the Source 2 tools and rendering features to the community map makers to make it easier to build, experiment and iterate.
Alongside some impressive water effects, Counter-Strike 2 will also have stunning new smoke effects. Smoke Grenades will now be dynamic volumetric objects that interact with the environment, and react to lighting, gunfire, and explosions. Furthermore, the shape of the smoke cloud can be pushed and carved by bullets or grenades.
You can go ahead and download the game from Steam. Below you can also find its key features.
- All-new CS Ratings with the updated Premier mode
- Global and Regional leaderboards
- Upgraded and overhauled maps
- Game-changing dynamic smoke grenades
- Tick-rate-independent gameplay
- Redesigned visual effects and audio
- All items from CS:GO moving forward to CS2
Have fun!
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
Contact: Email
Finally, i will play this one
CS 1,6 Was the game that made me entering the PC Gaming in 1999
Same, altho it was 1.5 and we went to 1.6 waaay later. Good old days
Awesome job from Valve, as always!
Also, should you use the Vulkan renderer, make sure that your GPU driver supports VK_EXT_graphics_pipeline_library, as that will make sure there are zero stutters during gameplay, as I can confirm from my testing on Linux.
And speaking of Vulkan:
I know people around here like to use DXVK for DX9/DX10/DX11 games, and for that there is a new kid on the block which combines the very latest DXVK version with the Async patchset:
Just google for “dxvk-gplasync”, which will lead you to the GitLab repository where it’s hosted.
Like regular DXVK, just drop the DLL files into the games’ root folder where the EXE file is located.
To benefit from the Async patch which completely gets rid of any & all stutters, create a dxvk.conf file (make sure it’s NOT named dxvk.conf.txt) and paste the following into it:
dxvk.enableAsync=true
Plus if you want to take advantage of the state cache in combination with the Async patch, so that already compiled shaders are cached for future re-use, additionally add this to dxvk.conf:
dxvk.gplAsyncCache=true
Hope you guys find it useful, and if you do, don’t forget to thank Valve for sponsoring the work on DXVK, which is the reason why it has advanced this far and will continue to do so!
Linux fanboys, the vegans of the digital world.
*I can confirm from my testing on Linux*
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
What’s so funny about actually testing stuff before posting about it, unlike what some other users on here are doing, i.e. talking out of their collective ar$es?
BTW, weren’t you claiming to have worked with Linux for 20 years?
So tell me, what do you do with it?
Or was that yet another fart coming out of your $hithole you call your mouth?
Looking forward to your reply…
Thanks in advance!
To be fair, i thought it was a really good post, understanding how things work and how to alter rendering, rather than acting like a rock ape and “Dum Dum play game lulz”.
I’m a HLDM guy (still lol) and suck at CS, but my son and lots of my old clan mates who been with 1.6 forever will be thrilled to check it out.
Same vibes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HM_jwTqVOjc
10/10
looks like the previous version what is the 2 for?
There are:
1) CS 1.x
2) CS Condition Zero (little known)
3) CS Source
4) CS:GO (from 2012!)
5) and now CS… 2 🤣 which should have been CS 5 or CS V which sounds even cooler.
So, confirmed, Valve can’t count past 2, at least for 10 more years. (yeah i know it’s because of the Source 2 engine)
I think the name was a miscommunication between the development dept and the marketing dept. Development told marketing in a meeting that the name would be CS Too (since it’s clearly more of the same CS game) but marketing thought they meant CS 2. Should get cleared up soon.
There are:
1) CS 1.x
2) CS Condition Zero (little known)
3) CS Source (2004)
4) CS:GO (from 2012!)
5) and now CS… 2 🤣 which should have been CS 5 or CS V.
So, confirmed, Valve can’t count past 2, at least for 10 more years.
Yeah i know it’s because of the Source 2 engine, which again: just ‘2’ after iterating on it for almost 20 years?
Insurgency Sandstorm is a million times better than this crap.
Bring on the downvotes!
Am I right or am I right though? 😉
Insurgency turned into the same thing with all it’s skins.
Most idiotic comment I’ve read all day. Congrats.
It sux my LinuxGSM based CS:GO server doesn’t work anymore. There are no updates, even though the steam_appid is the same!