Sequel To Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Is Supposedly in Development
The popular tactical shooter Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) is getting a sequel.
According to gaming reporter and former caster Richard Lewis, a new version of CS:GO has been in the works for some time now and is coming very soon. He says the game is "about ready to go", and has already been tested in secret by an unnamed group of professional players. He expects Valve to expand testing to the broader CS:GO community as early as this month.
Counter-Strike 2, as it's tentatively referred to, is being developed using Valve's Source 2 game engine, which, Lewis says, should improve optimisation and graphical fidelity. The move, however, could come at the cost of performance for players that plan to run the game on less capable PCs. Then again, Valve's strategy with games, as Lewis points out, is to make them as accessible to a broader player base as possible, suggesting the new version could still run on older hardware.
The game could also feature speedy 128-tick servers, which process requests faster to lower latency, along with improvements to matchmaking. But apart from these, not much is known yet about the technical details of the yet-to-be-announced game.
The Counter-Strike community has long speculated that a sequel for CS:GO, first released in August 2012, was in the works, so much so that it became the subject of internet jokes and memes. But chatter around the game truly picked up when users on social media shared that Nvidia drivers introduced support for two new executable files, "csgos2.exe" and "cs2.exe".
Lewis' sources also said the game's development became a priority at Valve, resulting in teams having less time to address issues with CS:GO. "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," said his sources.
Valve didn't respond to various outlets' requests for comment.
A new version of CS:GO has reportedly been in the works for some time now and is coming very soon.
Valve is expected to playtest Counter-Strike 2, as it's tentatively referred to, as early as this month.
The game is being built on the developer's Source 2 engine and could feature 128-tick servers and improvements to matchmaking.