For some fans (us included) the release of CS2 has been a massive disappointment.
On March 22, Counter-Strike 2 was announced. A revolution in first-person shooters was promised. New smokes abilities, new servers, new looks, new sounds. It looked perfect. The pro-players and content creators were talking so highly about it. Soon after, the limited test started and work on CS:GO came to an end. Bugs were found, new maps were tested, and more players got invited.
“Summer 2023” was set to be the release date. Come June and only a handful of maps were in play. Then went July and August with no new information. And by September, all we got was the new “Premier Mode”, but we still weren't given a release date.
Finally, on September 20, we received a tweet from Counter-Strike's admins asking "What are you doing next Wednesday?" Everyone was hyped. Then we actually played CS2...
CS2: A Disappointing Release
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive was a near-perfect game. The community didn't ask for much. Weapons, maps, and economy have been finely tuned and balanced on a razor blade over the last 10 years of CS:GO's existence. Players wanted a graphics overhaul, adapting Counter-Strike to the Source 2 engine. People wanted better servers, ideally 128 tick to bring the FACEIT players back to CS's in-house matchmaking. Fans wanted frequent updates and content, like operations. And finally, a better anti-cheat.
Valve didn't need to change a lot. But they did. Some really cool ideas were realized for the game. The maps look gorgeous. The smoke changes are phenomenal. The Loadout system finally lets you play M4A4 and M4A1-S at the same time. But it feels like the game isn't finished.
CS2's Servers: Hard-coded To Still Be Worse Than Competitors
The Sub-tick system still feels like 64 tick servers, since they are. The hit registration seems to be delayed thanks to the sub-tick system and movement feels less smooth than on FACEIT. So the community is split between FACEIT players and in-house players again.
Still A Cheaters Paradise
The problem of cheating still isn't solved and as much as I like to have faith that VACnet will turn it around eventually, Valve should take a look at FACEIT and Valorant and use a kernel-mode anti-cheat. We need an anti-cheat that doesn't react, but rather acts before a match goes live.
Less Game Modes For New Players
With the transition from CS:GO to CS2, some game modes were (hopefully temporarily) lost. The War Games “Arms Race” and “Demolition” aren't here. Those are great games to learn the fundamentals of Counter-Strike. No need to care about economy. No need to care about ranks. No need to know the map. Just go in, shoot, learn to hear footsteps and have fun. Game modes where progression is rewarded after a single kill.
The “Flying Scoutsman” Mode was also removed. A fun mode which lets you train your sniper abilities. With the high jumps you could perform in this mode, exploring maps was a really fun experience too, but no longer.
With the transition to CS2, there are only a handful of community servers for Surf, KZ, Retakes or Warmup. There was no official communication between Valve and some of the biggest community servers to try to get the servers live with the CS2 launch. The community maps are completely gone at the moment. It would be extremely disappointing if they don't make a return into the game at a later stage. The practice maps, the crosshair and viewmodel maps, aim_bots, aim_moller_v2, refrag, story maps, we loved them, we want them back. Yet there is no way to play them at the moment.
This Feels Like A Beta
Ultimately, CS2 feels a beta; the game is playable, but there is clearly a lot that still needs to be ironed out. And what's so annoying about this situation is that the playerbase would have been happy to play CS:GO for a few more months while Valve finish CS2.
I like playing Counter-Strike 2. Don't get me wrong. But, the lack of communication from the devs and underwhelming final product are hard to ignore. What makes this even worse is that community expectations had gone through the roof for this game.
Yes, people tend to dislike new things and ask for the return of the old. I wouldn't go this far in regard to CS:GO and CS2, but this release almost comes off as arrogant from Valve. For instance, they gave us a brand-new hard-coded sub-tick system instead of just upgrading to 128 tick, and they once again put all their faith into VACnet, even though it clearly still isn't working. Valve, we won't blame you for “copying from Valorant or FACEIT”, when you implement good gameplay features.
I just want to play a game that seems finished. That is well-structured, for newbies as well as for the pros. A game where you can follow a schedule instead of guessing and guessing. Developers that care for the wishes of the community. And still I think CS2 will be a great success. The Counter-Strike brand will manifest itself as the #1 first-person shooter. And CS2 will be a ton of fun, it has a lot of potential to be even better. But it could've been that at release.