While the Counter-Strike community is excited to play the so-called Counter-Strike 2 and appears to be convinced that Valve is getting close to integrating the Source 2 game engine into CS:GO, s1mple isn’t certain it will happen any time soon and believes that people are being tricked.
“There is no Source 2 (yet) and the developers [Valve] haven’t given anyone beta [access],” s1mple said on Instagram yesterday. “It was all bait from pro players and streamers.”
While it’s unclear when Valve will release Counter-Strike 2, Richard Lewis reported earlier this month that Source 2 is arriving in beta at the end of this month. Lewis also reported that professional players had tested the game and that Counter-Strike 2 was “about ready to go.”
CS:GO leakers have suggested the developers have been working on bringing Source 2 to CS:GO since 2022 and the number of leaks has increased in 2023. A leak from today, for example, indicates Source 2 has been added to the developer pre-release branch, which means the developer build is being updated. This step is usually done when the developers are getting ready to push a release.
Nobody but the developers and the pro players who tested Counter-Strike 2 can say at this point what will change once the update is out. Source 2 is expected to at least upgrade the game’s graphics and bring some new mechanics, but it’s unclear if Valve is making changes to features like matchmaking like the community is hoping for.
While almost everyone seems excited but s1mple, there is at least one fellow pro that agrees with the best CS:GO player in the world. FaZe Clan Twistzz said during the ongoing ESL Pro League season 17 that people are “overreacting” about Source 2.
