Valve officially announce Counter-Strike 2 after months of rumours

After weeks and months of teasing players and people of all ages about the possibility of a Counter-Strike 2 release, Valve has officially announced the game and launched the first beta, dubbed “Limited Test”.

The “Limited Test” will be open to a select number of players who will be chosen “based on a number of factors deemed important by the Counter-Strike 2 development team, including (but not limited to) recent playtime on Valve official servers, trust factor, and Steam account standing.”

Valve published three videos on their YouTube channel (will be liked at the bottom of the page) detailing the changes they made to the maps, smokes, and tick rate using their new Counter-Strike engine.

After 12 years of Counter-Strike Global Offensive being the single Counter-Strike game played by professionals and amateurs all over the world, the sequel offers a lot of hope to players who stopped playing the game for a variety of reasons, including out-of-date anti-cheat and a reluctance to update their game or spend money to fix gameplay issues.

With the “Limited Test” beta now available for a select number of players and expected to be available until the official launch of Counter-Strike 2 which Valve have said “is expected to ship in Summer 2023”.

As with any new game that releases a beta, issues will arise, and they will be addressed with multiple updates throughout the beta.

Keep an eye out for more updates and information as they become available in the buildup to the release of the sequel of the insanely popular Counter-Strike title.

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Ciaran Jackman

Senior Esports Editor

Ciaran Jackman spent six years as a senior editor at EsportBet.com, publishing nearly 1,000 articles across CS2, VALORANT and League of Legends. A mad esports fan and one of the hardest working people in the organisation, Ciaran was a defining voice on the site from 2019 to 2025.

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