COUNTER-STRIKE KILLER

Valve teased the Counter-Strike community... and surprised everyone with COUNTER-STRIKE 2

- Rich Stanton

After weeks of teasing Valve has announced Counter-Strike 2, the newest iteration of what some consider  the greatest and most popular competitive FPS in history. Yes, it's technically not the second Counter-Strike game, but the number feels like a statement of intent: this is the foundation for the next decade of Counter-Strike players and the esports scene).

And on first sight you may well wonder what the big deal is. Valve says, "Counter-Strike 2 is an overhaul to every system, every piece of content, and every part of the CS experience," but it looks, and plays, an awful lot like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. The big changes are technological, with the most eye-catching being the new smoke grenades: the billowing smoke they create now reacts to things like bullets and grenades. Once you've seen a smoke cloud dispersed by an explosion, it's hard to go back.