Counter-Strike 2 Revealed by Valve, Releasing This Summer

gadgets.ndtv.com:

Counter-Strike 2 is officially a thing, and it is slated for release this summer (American). Running on the Source 2 engine, which also served as a foundation for the acclaimed Half-Life: Alyx, the game will be available as a free upgrade to the existing CS:GO. Limited testing for CS2 is now live and will present itself to select players as a special notification on CS:GO's main menu. Serving as the “largest technical leap forward in Counter-Strike's history,” the game includes several visual and technical upgrades, with the promise of more to come. The news comes after a leak from earlier this month, where a recent Nvidia driver update added support for ‘cs2.exe' and ‘csgo2.exe.'

In a series of videos, developer Valve addressed what distinguishes CS2 from CS:GO. First up, you've got the classic maps — Dust 2, Inferno, Train, and more — which come with lighting and visual improvements, leading to reflections on tiles, puddles, and better shadows. This is all thanks to the new Source 2 lighting, which includes a “physically based rendering system.” The oldest maps have been fully rebuilt from scratch to feature new assets and physics changes, giving a fresh aesthetic to a beloved game, by making use of the Source 2 tools. The tools will be available to community map makers as well, letting them build and experiment with details as tiny as textures or lighting colours.

Counter-Strike is known for its pinpoint, precise gunplay, evaluating movement and shooting in specific time intervals or ticks. On CS:GO's official in-game servers, this was hard-locked to 64hz, albeit one could bump it up to 128hz on third-party servers, resulting in a streamlined competitive experience. The metric essentially measures the frequency at