The rumour mill continues to grind when it comes to Counter-Strike: Global Offensive 2, or CS:GO 2, and some more recent revelations have sparked sequel conversations right back up.
According to journalist Richard Lewis (via VGC), a journalist with a long record of breaking Counter-Strike-related stories, insider sources have told him that “a new version of Counter-Strike [is] on its way and that had been worked on for some time.”
Lewis notes that leakers and data miners have been promising the release of a new Counter-Strike: Global Offensive on the Source 2 engine for a number of years now, to a point where it’s become a bit of a meme to members of the community.
Memes aside, a few new little things started to pick the rumour right back up again. First there was the new CS:GO banner on Twitter, which is a simple design that just says “Counter-Strike.” with a little gun man underneath. This kind of thing isn’t normally a huge deal, but it’s certainly interesting for a title that’s been out for almost 11 years.
And then came some very interesting screenshots from NVIDIA drivers, which included support for “csgo2.exe” and “cs2.exe”.
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
The banner change is pretty stock standard, but internal code is pretty eye-popping.
Since then, Lewis has had multiple insider sources reach out to his publication under the condition of anonymity to confirm that a “new version” of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is on its way. Lewis says that the new version is “almost certainly set to be released under the working title Counter-Strike 2” and that the tentative release date for the beta is “in this month of March with April 1st at the outside”.
The sources claim quite a lot in Lewis’ report, regarding the title as “something of a priority for Valve’s team”, confirmation that it will be on the Source 2 engine, will include an improved match-making system, and that the game is “about ready to go”.
No word yet on what this will mean for CS:GO‘s esports scene though, as only an official announcement would be able to determine whether or not the rumoured new title would completely replace the current game or run alongside it.
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