A couple of days ago, Valve announced Counter-Strike 2, an overhauled version of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive in Source2 Engine. Alongside that announcement, Valve launched a Limited Test beta phase for it. And, as you may have guessed, this Limited Test Build has been leaked online.
As always, we won’t allow links to pirated content. So no, don’t start asking for links to download it. We can confirm, though, that this leak is legit.
Now while most of you won’t be able to play online (duh), you will be able to at least the beta build. You can also play with bots, so that’s something.
Counter-Strike 2 is the largest technical leap forward in Counter-Strike’s history, ensuring new features and updates for years to come.
Counter-Strike 2 will feature 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.
One of the biggest changes in Counter-Strike 2 is its sub-tick update architecture. Thus, regardless of tick rate, your moving and shooting will be equally responsive.
Counter-Strike 2 will officially release this Summer, and will be a free upgrade to CS:GO!
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.”
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“Counter-Strike 2 will feature overhauled graphics” That’s a stretch
It really isn’t. If you think otherwise 99% chance it’s because you saw Dust2 and assumed that’s the level of quality they’re going for. They’re not and they explained the different tiers of maps in the video so you have no excuse to spout an uninformed opinion. Dust2 is literally using the basic CSGO textures, no PBR materials, and even with old textures the dynamic lighting already looks better than CSGO’s baked (!) lighting. It’s actually kind of crazy that some people are getting 400 fps with lighting of that quality. Only raytraced games can keep up, while running at sub-100 fps on high end PCs. It’s really good.
True, Valve does have some of the best software engineers in the entire industry!
It’s just such a shame that the Source2 engine will most likely never get used by any other game studio out there, since almost all of them are converging towards Unreal Engine.
Remember how well Titanfall 2 was running on a modified Source1 engine?
But then Respawn used UE4 on Jedi: Fallen Order, which has become famous for being a stuttery mess…
(Fixable via DXVK-Async, but that’s beside the point.)