Counter-Strike: Global Offensive has passed the baton to Counter-Strike 2, but many fans feel disappointed with the kind-of-sequel’s missing features.
When publisher/developer Valve announced Counter-Strike 2, the exciting new features were the fancy smoke and water technology, the ability to refund items bought mistakenly, and some revamped maps - all built on the Source 2 engine. What Valve didn’t mention was that the Source 2 update would launch without many of its predecessor’s best features.
Redditor cosmictrigger01 listed many of these omissions on the game’s subreddit, which include absent maps and modes, no player-made workshop maps, no Mac support, worsened performance optimization, and much more.
- "This is devastating": After 8 years of work, CS:GO mod that aimed to revive "the 1.6 vibe" apparently rejected by Steam "without any reason," despite previous contact with Valve
- Valve adds "all the Team Fortress 2 client and server game code" to its Source mod tools, letting modders "build completely new games based on TF2" and publish them on Steam
This is really disappointing from r/GlobalOffensive
Streamer Anomaly echoes a similar sentiment on Twitter: “They basically release no NEW content with the launch. And I guess to not divide the audience, they completely removed CS:GO, so the only game we’re left with is the seemingly rushed CS2.”
Counter-Strike 2 was essentially a free update to Global Offensive, so players can’t go back to enjoy that game’s removed features. “Very weird how all of the hype for the last few weeks lead up to… basically nothing,” Anomaly adds.
Pro Counter-Strike player Robin “ropz” Kool had a lighter opinion in an interview with HLTV. “The game is playable, so the people who are saying it’s unplayable are definitely wrong,” ropz explains, but added that “the game is not ready for competitive matches.” Despite that, the player believes that sticking with the game is the best way forward: “You kind of have to just force CS2 in a way… because that’s the best way to speed this whole thing up.”
esports ready :D (muted because i scream) pic.twitter.com/vuaZLlTtOFSeptember 27, 2023
Other Reddit threads have also come to the sequel’s defense. One mentioned that they “keep seeing people complain about missing modes in CS2, like Danger Zone or Demolition or Flying Scoutsman,” but “there’s no way you guys actually played these modes.” The Redditor then goes on to say, “I’ve seen more complaints about these modes missing than actual discussion about these modes 5+ years after their release.” Some commenters did spot Arms Race maps in the game’s trailer, so Valve may add in missing content over time.
We might need to wait a while for these additions (or re-additions), but Valve has already started the post-launch update train today with a relatively minor update that boosted server capacity.
Before release, Valve did join CS:GO veterans with teary goodbyes to the game (and its features, seemingly.)
