Valve is reportedly working on a new version of its ever-popular multiplayer shooter game, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS: GO), according to a credible report by esports journalist Richard Lewis.
For those unaware, CS: GO remains the most popular game on Valve’s Steam platform, which continues to consistently draw more than 1.3 million players on a daily basis.
Coming to the sequel of CS: GO, it could be possibly called Counter-Strike 2 and be released on the company’s Source 2 engine that powered some of Valve’s other games, such as Dota 2 and Half-Life: Alyx.
“A new version of Counter-Strike [is] on its way and that had been worked on for some time,” said Lewis citing sources speaking under the condition of anonymity with a knowledge of the game’s development.
He added: “The new version is almost certainly set to be released under the working title Counter-Strike 2 and the tentative release date for the beta is in this month of March with April 1st at the outside.”
As per Lewis’ sources, Valve has been working on a sequel to CS: GO for some time, and the game is “about ready to go.” The updated game has already entered limited testing, which was tried out by an unnamed group of professional CS: GO players that were flown out in secret to Valve’s headquarters in Seattle.
To back Lewis’ claims, there was also a recent NVIDIA leak by the popular @gabefollower that showed a new NVIDIA graphics driver has introduced support for “Counter-strike 2” and two new, unknown executable files called “csgos2.exe, and cs2.exe”. These have been implemented by NVIDIA ahead of the beta launch as early as later this month.
Something weird just happened. Latest NVIDIA drivers introduced support for unknown app executables called "csgos2.exe" and "cs2.exe". Why project is called Counter-Strike 2 and what are you cooking @csgo? https://t.co/U9YKlAjwgy pic.twitter.com/PU8Op9uGLq
— ?Gabe Follower 2 (@gabefollower) March 1, 2023
Lewis’s sources state that the creation of the game had been something of a priority for Valve’s team, which is why some issues with CS: GO have been largely unattended to for some time.
“The big priority is getting this out and then polishing it, fixing any bugs, and bringing it up to the level people expect from CS,” according to Lewis’ sources.
Sources also claimed to Lewis that the new competitive shooter game would feature improved matchmaking systems and servers that would run at “128 tick bringing it in line with rival title Valorant.”
Valve has yet to comment on the new game development. We shall update the story as and when we receive new information.
