Rasmus “HooXi” Nielsen, the current in-game leader for G2’s CS:GO team, has shared his feedback on Counter-Strike 2 after playing the limited test for a couple of hours. While he’s mostly positive about CS2, there’s one aspect of the game that he hated—the way the smoke grenades interact with HE explosions.
The smoke grenades in CS2 have become dynamic volumetric objects that interact with the setting and other objects, automatically fill a space like tunnels, and most notably can temporarily fade away because of gunfire and explosions caused by HE grenades, as you can see in the clip below in which former professional player Jordan “nothing” Gilbert creates a play for himself off the back of this new feature. While there are players who are happy with how dynamic the smoke has become, HooXi said he hates how long the fade lasts.
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“I actually like the idea that you can shoot the smoke and it is more revealing for whoever initiates the spam battle,” HooXi said in a TwitLonger. “But the new HE mechanic of making the smoke literally disappear for three to four seconds is too much. It will change the way CS is played forever and you have to be very careful when changing fundamental parts of CS that have been there since the beginning. I am not a fan and I hope they come up with something else or just remove this completely.”
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This is interesting because it shows that players can differ on the same subject. Shroud, a former CS:GO star and one of the most-watched content creators in the world, is also annoyed with the smoke change. On the contrary to HooXi, though, he likes the HE gimmick but said it’s “not so cool” that it interacts with gunshots. “What’s the fucking point of a smoke, I don’t really like that much,” shroud said.
In general, however, the captain of the No. 1 CS:GO team in the world pointed out that Valve did a great job with CS2. He enjoys the gunplay and most notably the game’s new sounds because it can set up interesting plays and mind games, in his opinion.
Despite not agreeing with how the smokes will work, HooXi is “positive” that Valve will make the right decisions for CS2 in the end, especially if the developers listen to community feedback. The game will be a free update to CS:GO and will launch worldwide this summer.
