Counter-Strike 2 seems more likely than ever following Valve's recent trademark application

gamesradar.com:

Another day, another Counter-Strike rumor - only this one is the most promising yet, as developer Valve has seemingly filed a trademark filing for something called "CS2".

As spotted by PCGN (opens in new tab), on March 14, Valve Corporation filed a trademark application to the USPTO for "CS2", adding fuel to the speculative fire that a new CS:GO game may be on the way.

And if that's not enough to convince you, there's even more; the new filing links to two other, older trademark filings, and whilst Valve was canny enough to put the registration numbers rather than the names of the "related properties", a quick search tells you that US Registration Number 5857740 and 5857738 relate to previous trademark filings for Counter-Strike and CS:GO.

There have been rumors that a new Counter-Strike: Global Offensive game is on the way for some time now, but this is possibly the most concrete hint yet that a CS:GO Source 2 is just around the corner.

It follows recent reports from noted CS leakers (opens in new tab) that found a couple of curious files have popped up in NVIDIA's latest drive update - one called cs2.exe and the other csgo2.exe.

We also had journalist Richard Lewis similarly reporting that "a new version of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive [is] on its way"... and it is "almost certainly set to be released under the working title of Counter-Strike 2".

Despite releasing over 11 years ago, it seems CS:GO has never been more popular; the shooter broke its own concurrent user record (opens in new tab) - the term given to the number of players logged into a game all at the same time - last month, and then again just two weeks later (opens in new tab). 

Perhaps unsurprisingly, then, the record's just be broken again.