2023-03-24 04:47:10
Engine Source 2 from Valve promises to bring a series of new features in part 2 of the fps game Counter-Strike.
Counter-Strike 2 is expected to launch in the summer of 2023.
Valve has officially announced Counter-Strike 2 and the Source 2 engine, promising an “overhaul to every Counter-Strike system, content, and experience”. The announcement came with three videos on how Counter-Strike 2 works, showcasing newly updated maps, smoke grenades, and “sub-updates,” and Valve said it would provide updates as well. Server updates are even more frequent.
A limited playable test begins today for select Counter-Strike: Global Offensive players. Valve has also published FAQs about the limited beta for CS2 and how to sign in.
The new Counter-Strike will run on Valve’s Source 2 engine. Valve calls it “the biggest technical leap in Counter-Strike history”. In part, that means an overhaul to classic Counter-Strike maps, some of which players have been familiar with for over 20 years. Those maps will be “sharper, better, and better,” Valve said, thanks to “upgrades and overhauls that take advantage of all of Source 2’s new rendering tools and features.”
The smoke grenades in Counter-Strike 2 are also getting an overhaul. Valve says the smoke plumes from smoke grenades are now dynamic-volume objects that interact with the environment, and they will react to light, gunfire and explosions. In practice, that means players will be able to make “holes” in smoke grenades and even blow them up with fragmentation grenade explosions.
Ultimately, Valve promises to go beyond 128 fps in other online multiplayer games. Valve calls its new technologies “sub-tick updates”, describing them as “the heart of Counter-Strike 2”. “Previously, the server only evaluated the world at discrete intervals (called ticks),” Valve explains. Thanks to Counter-Strike 2’s sub-tick update architecture, servers know exactly when to start a movement, a shot is fired, or a grenade is thrown.
“As a result, regardless of frame rate, your moves and fires will react equally quickly and your grenades will always land the same way.”
Counter-Strike 2 will be the fourth major entry in Valve’s first-person shooter series. The game was originally released in 2000, and it is based on Valve’s mod for Half-Life. Valve developed it with Counter-Strike: Source in 2004 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive in 2012. More than 10 years after its initial release, CS:GO is still extremely popular; This free game is usually the most played title on Steam. Earlier this month, CS:GO hit an all-time concurrent player record of 1.4 million players.
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