After CS2 fans and leakers spent the past months speculating on the release date of CS2, Valve has finally announced on Sept. 13 that the game is coming out “soon.”
This is the first time Valve has said anything about CS2’s release date besides announcing on March 22—when the beta kicked off— that CS2 was coming out in the summer of 2023. The CS2 tease was made through Steam’s 20th birthday page, in which Valve talked about what it did in 2023.
“The year isn’t quite over but so far we’ve released a huge Steam Client update, Counter-Strike 2 entered into beta (and launches soon) and there are now more than 11,000 titles verified or playable on Steam Deck,” Valve said.
Although CS2 is still unpolished and many things have to be fixed, it makes sense that Valve is preparing to release it. The developer made significant changes to the game on Aug. 31 when it added a competitive mode called Premier, which features a unique rating system and allows players to compete in global, regional, and friends’ leaderboards.
On top of that, all maps in CS:GO’s Active Duty map pool have already been adjusted for CS2 and players can finally ban-and-pick maps if they queue for Premier.
While it remains unclear exactly when Valve will finally release CS2, some fans are optimistic the game will launch before Sept. 23, which is when summer ends in the U.S. This is because Valve’s headquarters is located in Seattle.
Either way, it’s time to prepare to ditch CS:GO and make the transition to CS2 “soon.”
