Today is June 16th, 2024. I don't know when it happened, but I've more than doubled my playtime from Global Offensive compared to 2. I've played CS:GO on and off during my time in Middle and High School, and it wasn't until I graduated HS that I finally started putting more time and hours into the game. All that said, what's changed? Is this game any better? We're ~4 months away from the 1-year period marking this game's “release.”

To the surprise of nobody, not much has changed. An operation was leaked, a new case was dropped, numerous maps all received changes that absolutely decimated and spun their style of gameplay on their heads. One major has taken place with nothing substantial following in its suit, where did the game go?

It's hard to believe that the game has been in this state of limbo for quite some time. Weapon buffs and nerfs still take place, but the game is certainly downgraded from what it once was during its time as Global Offensive. Sure, the game looks gorgeous, but Jesus fucking Christ, all the competitive modes suck, the game is littered with cheaters, and it's nowhere near as consistently enjoyable as it once was.

CS2 fiddles with some interesting competitive ideas, but ultimately isn't able to follow through with any of them in a way that compliments their mechanical function. The current highest map competitive rank is fucking LEGENDARY EAGLE on Dust 2, Mirage, and a couple other maps. WHAT? How did they fuck up the ranking system this bad? High silver and low gold get littered with comparatively far better players than they should with individual ranks, and premier games are too long and boring for me to even care about giving a shit towards them.

Well, what about the non-competitive modes?

Counter-Strike 2 is missing: Demolition, Flying Scoutsman, Retakes, and Danger-Zone, in addition to FAR too many maps that have been dropped from the playing pool due to a lack in “next-gen” versions existing.

Some of my favorite missing maps include: Cobblestone, Assault, Canals, Train (which seemingly exists and is ready for playing?), and Cache.

Personally, a lot of these issues I hold with the game wouldn't matter if the CSGO branch of the game was still up while waiting for CS2 to reach a better state. However, the lovely individuals at Valve decided to shut down that branch at the beginning of this year.

Despite all of my bitching and moaning in this hate boner fueled rant, I still play Counter-Strike 2. I love Counter-Strike, but my god does it often feel like the devs are just some of the most incompetent and inconsiderate people ever. Here's to a better year for Counter-Strike, I guess.