Counter-Strike 2 to Release Mid-Year; Limited Test Begins

Recently there have been rumours of a new Counter-Strike game being released: today those rumours have been confirmed true. Counter-Strike 2 is real. It's been over a decade since Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) was released, so the CS fans are probably well overdue for a new game, but it seems like the changes to CS 2 are incremental so we're not talking about a huge paradigm shift here. Most of the changes to CS:GO are going to be cosmetic. Everything is going to be running off the Source 2 engine now so expect reworked models, effects and maps. The game's UI is also going to be reworked as well as the audio. One of the more exciting changes though is how the new smoke grenades work. The smoke actually looks different depending on the lighting conditions and when you fire bullets or throw grenades into the smoke it actually displaces it just as you'd expect in real life, making these smoke grenades the most realistic I've seen in a game to date.

Apparently more features will be revealed in the coming months but that's as far as Valve were willing to disclose for the time being.

For those that are interested in being involved in the Limited Test, they have to login to CS:GO to see if they have been given an invite. Players are picked based on a number of factors which include how recently you've played CS:GO on official Valve servers, trust factor and Steam account standing (sorry, no hackers allowed!).

The Limited Test runs until "Summer 2023" which is also when the game is slated for release.