A couple of days ago, Valve suddenly announced the availability of a Counter-Strike 2 beta limited to a select number of veteran Counter-Strike: Global Offensive players.
Earlier today, Twitter user vx-underground revealed that the Counter-Strike 2 beta build had leaked online, allowing people to play it solo. Clearly, someone in that limited group shared the files.
While the game is obviously meant to be played online, being a competitive multiplayer first-person shooter, this leaked Counter-Strike 2 beta can still showcase the game’s many new features. Let’s go through them.
According to Valve, the game is the largest technical improvement ever in the franchise’s history. Competitive players will be happy to know that the developers created a so-called sub-tick architecture where everyone’s actions, regardless of the tick rate, will be equally responsive thanks to servers knowing exactly when a certain action has been performed.
On the gameplay front, Valve demonstrated the impact of the new smoke system with a dedicated Counter-Strike 2 beta video. In this sequel, smoke can fully interact with map elements and with bullets or grenades, which can pierce the smoke to clear a line of fire. The smoke also looks much better since its particles are now part of the unified lighting system and behave accordingly.
Visual effects have been overhauled across the board, including water, explosions, projectiles, fires, and more. Even bloodstains are directional so that they can provide players with information. The User Interface received a full revamp as well to better communicate important game states. Audio has been reworked to be more comfortable for listeners and yet to more accurately represent the in-game environment.
The maps in Counter-Strike 2 will be split into three macro categories, Valve said. The reference maps, like the all-time classic Dust II, have gotten just lighting improvements so that they might be used as references for gameplay changes. The updated maps, like Nuke, have been improved more thoroughly to include PBR materials, lighting, and reflections. Finally, the completely revamped maps have been essentially remade to take advantage of the Source 2 engine’s capabilities.
Speaking of Source 2, modders will get to play with it very soon. The Object Workshop is expected to be shared at a later moment during the ongoing Counter-Strike 2 beta.
Valve said that Counter-Strike 2 will be released this Summer as a free update to Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. The developer also confirmed that existing CS:GO players will be able to bring their inventory with them, enjoying higher resolution weapons on top of the Source 2 lighting and materials improvements detailed earlier in the article.
