CS2 News

Counter-Strike 2 is among the most popular competitive video games in the world today, upholding a tradition first set by the release of the original Counter-Strike in 1999. What started as a community-made modification for another game entirely has become one of the best-known franchises in all of gaming, with a particular footprint in the world of esports.

✅ Counter-Strike has defined esports for decades

In most of the world, no game has better defined esports than Counter-Strike, and this continues to be the case more than two decades after the game’s release with current edition Counter-Strike 2.

Almost immediately after the original release of the game in mod form, Counter-Strike inspired competitions around the globe. With the increasing proliferation of the internet and rapidly advancing connection speeds, competition through online play had already begun taking off with the Quake series leading the charge. Built on the same engine id Software used to develop Quake 2, upstart developer Valve released new game Half-Life to critical acclaim in 1998 with similar online options and functionality.

Despite its immediate popularity, Half-Life itself wasn’t the big hit online that Quake 2 had become. Instead, it was community-made mods for the game that would take Half-Life over the top. Team Fortress Classic and Day of Defeat were among the most popular mods released for Half-Life, but none could compare to the enduring popularity of Counter-Strike.

Crafted by Minh Le and Jess Cliffe in their spare time, Counter-Strike instantly hooked a legion of players. It’s format of play, in which games are divided into a set number of time-limited rounds, made it ideal for competition. Before long, amateur leagues had sprung up to support the desire to compete in CS. These were shortly followed by professional competitions sprinkled throughout numerous regions around the world.

The biggest of these competitions were hosted by the Cyberathlete Professional League (CPL), the World Cyber Games (WCG), and the Electronic Sports World Cup (ESWC). These were far from the only examples, however. Virtually every big gaming tournament would feature competitive Counter-Strike in the several years following its release.

The game’s community was split unevenly by the release of Counter-Strike: Source in 2004. Developed in-house by Valve after the developer had purchased the rights to the Counter-Strike intellectual property and hired both Le and Cliffe, this version of the game was based on the source engine that Valve had created primarily to support much-anticipated sequel Half-Life 2.

While most competitive outlets stuck with the original Counter-Strike, enough competitions and players made their way to Source that the game’s competitive scene was weakened, particularly in some regions. This would remain the case until the release of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive in 2012, an event that again unified the franchise’s competitive community and sparked fresh interest in the game’s esports scene.

Since that time, Counter-Strike has been buoyed by multiple Valve-sponsored major tournaments each year. This tradition has continued with the release of Counter-Strike 2 in 2023, a direct success to Global Offensive which plays very similarly while featuring a fresh look.

👀 Is Counter-Strike 2 a new game?

Counter-Strike 2 is technically a new game in the Counter-Strike series, though it isn’t necessarily brand new, and it’s much less of a departure from its predecessor than Counter-Strike: Source and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive were before it.

Counter-Strike 2 is very much built on the same principles as Global Offensive. In fact, CS2 outright replaced CSGO in Steam’s digital storefront upon release. This has been a controversial decision by Valve, as not all players were happy with being forced to so abruptly and completely transition from CSGO to CS2.

Valve surely wants to maintain a unified base of players, so it’s easy to understand why the developer would make the change the way that it did. It also helps to cut down on confusion, especially given just how similar Counter-Strike 2 is to Global Offensive.

There are a variety of changes present in CS2, but the biggest are largely technical. Counter-Strike 2 is absolutely the most visually impressive game in the long-running first-person shooting franchise. CSGO was more than 10 years old when it was replaced by CS2, and that’s practically an eternity in the world of graphical advancements.

While CS2 is technically new, it still plays almost identically to CSGO. In fact, players with experience with any of the Counter-Strike games should feel right at home when booting up Counter-Strike 2 and hopping into a game. It’s very much evocative of the franchise’s past games.

❓ Who made CS2?

CS2 was developed and published by Valve, the famous Seattle-based game developer that has owned the rights to the Counter-Strike franchise since purchasing them more than two decades ago from the original game’s creators.

Valve makes most of its money today through operating the ubiquitous digital storefront that is Steam, through which the vast majority of PC gamers find and play their favorite games. Steam still hasn’t become Valve’s sole priority however, and the release of CS2 was demonstrative of that.

Valve created Counter-Strike 2 in-house and has regularly updated and added to the game since its 2023 release. Despite this, many of the series’ fans remain frustrated with Valve, accusing the company of not devoting sufficient attention to its long-running competitive FPS.

There’s little doubt that CS2 did launch in a less functional state than the one CSGO had achieved after more than 10 years of updates. The fact that CSGO was removed entirely from Steam and replaced by CS2 makes this more difficult for many players to swallow. If someone goes from a smooth experience with one game, only to have the experience complicated during a forced transition to a new edition, it’s understandable that such a person would be frustrated. And that’s exactly what has happened for some Counter-Strike fans.

The vast majority of players have been able to carry on with their experience with little interruption despite the change, however. And it’s all but assured that Valve will continue in its support of Counter-Strike 2, given how reliably the company is able to drive revenues from the sale of in-game cosmetic items, primarily skins and sprays.

Those skins have an entire marketplace unto their own, as the popularity of Counter-Strike is such that the game’s rarest and most attractive in-game cosmetics have become hot commodities available at high prices.

The trading and buying of skins is for some players the primary motivation in taking part in Counter-Strike. Valve has been criticized for how it handles these digital goods, though there’s little arguing with the lucrative nature of the results. Valve does similarly good business with in-game cosmetics in its popular and similarly long-running MOBA, Dota 2, so it’s unlikely that Valve will be getting out of this particular aspect of the business any time soon.

🔎 News and guides for CS2 at jaxon.gg

There’s no better place to find the latest news and the best guides for CS2 than jaxon.gg. We cover the game from front to back, whether it’s the results of the latest competitive tournaments, guidance for how best to play the game’s newest maps, or the advice you need on how best to take advantage of the latest patch. We’ve got it covered. We also keep you up to speed on news about other gaming favorites. Check out our apex legends news for updates on apex legends, and for our mutiple-player, battle arena gaming lovers, we’ve got you covered on Dota 2 news too.

From operations to esports, Counter-Strike 2 is covered here like nowhere else.