Valve Continues The Counter-Strike Dynasty: Initial Impressions of CS2

  

 After months of waiting, Counter-Strike 2 is now ‘fully’ available to the public. Valve’s pinnacle shooter has taken the next technical leap forward. All of the maps on offer have never looked better, point blank, period. The game looks clear- gone are the muddy, at times, granular textures of Global Offensive. All of the maps are here. Some returning as we’ve always known them, and some have undergone tweaks that dramatically alter how key positions are played (looking at you Inferno). 

    The game has not just seen visual changes, technical network changes have also been made. The most notable of all is the contentious “sub-tick” system.Valve claims this addition to the game’s servers improves hit registration and overall game feel while playing online. We’ll discuss that and so much more in detail. Today, I’m going to talk about my initial impressions on the next step for the golden standard for competitive FPS.

    Right off the bat, you can feel how the aesthetics and heightened fidelity in CS2 improve target acquisition. When you peak a corner, you can immediately tell the difference between a person and the environment. Brighter colors and stylistic changes give a greater illusion of depth, helping you snap to your opponent that much easier when compared to CS:GO.  In the previous iteration, you’d turn a corner and a player, depending on where they were, would blend into the environment. 

    This phenomena was most evident when just a players head was peaking above a headglitch. Over the last week of playing CS2, I feel that players are more evident, regardless of how much of their model is showing or how far away their model is. If they are on your screen, you’ll see them. Valve’s decision to improve the readability of their game means they’ve removed one less point of frustration from this twitchy shooter where gunfights are decided in a matter of milliseconds. 

 

    The style and visuals aren’t the only things that have changed. With a new engine comes new quirks and, however minor, a different game feel. Game feel is a nebulous idea that all gamers,nonetheless, understand as tangible. When I started playing CS2, movement that was once almost second nature felt new, acutely odd. Strafing, peaking, air-strafing, bunny-hopping; many of the subtleties of Counter-Strike felt ever so slightly different in this offering. Now having played the game for over a week, I feel dialed in. Strafing around corners to peak other players has never felt sharper, b-hops and air strafing feel refined, the gunplay is tight. 

    They have not reinvented the wheel. Rather, Valve has recreated the CS:GO movement in the Source 2 engine. The rules are the same. Whatever literacy you, as a player, had in CS:GO movement will carry over, just give it some time. Since getting acclimated to CS2 it never crosses my mind that any of my inputs in CS2 don’t do what I expect it to do from my 100s of hours in previous entries. The movement is nearly unchanged, but ultimately enhanced. There’s some contention in the community that movement is ‘ just wrong’. I’m not in that camp, but I believe that with the almost daily updates that Valve is pushing out that, in due time, this game's movement will be the definitive example of Counter-Strike movement for all players. 

 

    One of the largest changes to the Counter-Strikes formula is the changes made to smoke grenades behavior. Counter-Strike is a game about savvy utility usage. Counter-Terrorists and Terrorists alike can use Molotovs, Frags, Flashes and Smokes to swing the odds in their favor. Throughout CS:GO's life, the smokes had become these guaranteed fields of obstruction-if someone puts a smoke down, then no one can see through it. That's changed here in CS2. The smokes are no longer a glorified filter over the game world, they are fully volumetric 3D objects that react to the space around them. They fill up rooms rather putting a 'Smoke.PNG' over the existing room. They don't just stop at reacting to rooms, they react dynamically to bullets and grenades. If another game has done this, someone tell me. 

    As far as I know, this is, at least, the first time smokes have behaved like this in a competitive first-person shooter. To the initiated, this change is large, but to the uninitiated, let me explain why it's so important. As I said before, a smoke down in CS:GO meant no one could respond to it. You either had to run through it, likely killing yourself, or spam through it in hopes you hit someone. Now as players shoot through the smoke, the bullets push the smoke slightly to the side, giving you brief glimpses as to what's on the other side. 

    If that's not enough for you, you can throw a frag grenade at a smoke, causing the cloud to part for a few seconds, potentially catching an unsuspecting foe on the other side off guard. Some of the most rewarding shots I've hit since playing CS2 have been a direct result of these mechanics. No longer can CT's just sit on-site with a smoke guaranteeing their safety. Now if they do that, I'm going to part the clouds with a frag and swing like the maniac I am. 

 

    What is Counter-Strike without ranked? At best, a phenomenal casual shooter, but with ranked and the competitive scene that follows, CS is the golden standard of competitive shooters. Tight gunplay, precisely tuned maps, and layers and layers of mechanics that demand the player to learn more just when they think they’ve learned it all. Valve’s newest iteration of their premiere competitive mode does away with the iconic Legacy Ranks, where you’d receive a badge that marks which rank you are. The bottom being silver, with it then it scaling and scaling up until you get to the elusive Global Elite.

     In the new mode, Premiere, Valve has implemented a true MMR rank, comparable to the community-run ‘Face-It’ matchmaking or Riot’s competing tactical shooter: Valorant. Gone are the nebulous badges and wondering ‘when am I going to rank up next’? Now you can see exactly where you stand. A rank with an evident and unique value provides players with clarity. They now know where they stack up against another player, whether it be a stranger or your closest friends. 

    The ranked climb in Counter-Strike has now become more interesting and transparent, something that  CS:GO struggled with during the last 3-4 years of its life. I will say, in my time playing premiere, the matches have not always felt the most competitive. Sometimes the matches feel fair and even, other times it feels like there’s an ocean of difference between the two team’s literacy in the game. 

    Though the game, at times, still feels like that in CS2, I chalk this up to everyone being hard reset and starting from scratch. As the days go on, however, this feeling has faded. As the weeks and months go on, I hope to see everyone fall into a healthy rank that, from there, they can grow and learn as players. After finishing my placements,  I'm at an ELO where I can keep learning and expanding. With the help of a few utility videos, and queuing with a couple of buddies, I trust that I will be grinding ranked for months, if not years, to come.  

 
    What I want to briefly touch on are the technical changes made to the game’s online servers and how those changes affect gameplay. Admittedly, I'm not an expert on net code or anything tangential to online matchmaking technology. Instead, I’ll share with you the discourse I’m hearing surrounding the changes made and how the changes have affected my gameplay experience so far.

    For those who are unaware, the Tick Rate in a video game refers to the rate at which information is updated between the computers of players and the dedicated server the players are all connected to when playing. The higher the Tick Rate, the more updates that happen each second. All online games, no matter how advanced, have some minor amount of discrepancy between all the players on a server. The higher the Tick Rate, the more accurate the match is to a LAN environment. Modern matchmaking systems have come a long way since CS:GO was initially released. The immediate comparisons players make to matchmaking as it is now are the aforementioned Face-It matchmaking and Valorant matchmaking, which both boast an impressive and snappy 128-tick matchmaking experience. These, currently, are heralded as the best of the best when it comes to game feel and responsiveness.

     Valve has decided to go ‘beyond tickrate’ with their new ‘SubTick’ system. To keep too much wonk out of this discussion, subtick reads shots that 128 simply can’t and won’t. The way these servers work is something special. Rather than waiting for the next Tick to send your inputs and receive information from your opponents, inputs happen between ticks. Watching Mr.Maxim’s video on the matter helps put into perspective the exact benefits of Subtick over traditional tick rates. There’s mountains of discourse on how this is not an upgrade from CS:GO, and that Subtick is not analogous to 128 tick servers.

     I’m cautious to make those claims because, simply, we need more data. Already, during this games launch, people have made claims about the performance being subpar and their ‘solution’ (a series of console commands) being the magic fix, only for Valve and trusted members of the community to debunk this. The community, historically, likes to look for reasons why perceived or real problems are occurring. So until we see Valve diagnose and solve these problems, I’ll hold off on saying whether or not there is something ‘wrong’ with the Subtick system. Feedback is necessary in order for us to get the best game possible. In that process, I hope all members of the community don’t lose sight of what game is actually in front of them. Intuitively, it feels like Subtick has only made the game feel snapper and more fluid, but that may just be placebo, who’s to say?

 

    Technical jargon aside, Counter-Strike 2 has been the most enjoyable multiplayer experience I've had all year. The game feels fresh, without betraying what has made the franchise so timeless and replayable. Maps that have been tuned for years, some decades, are here in full stead. The audio fidelity and depth has been enhanced to improve readability. Footsteps, bomb plants, the sound of your foe reloading, it’s all been tweaked and polished. 

    Valve has made the readability in audio just astounding. It must be said, the near-countless amount of skins are back and with new aesthetic flair. Even the cheapest and most banal skins have a newfound sheen thanks to the new engine’s enhanced lighting and textures. But beyond technical improvements, Counter-Strike is great by virtue of it being Counter-Strike. Generations before me have enjoyed this franchise, and Counter-Strike 2 will be many people’s first entry. 

    This new generation will experience, alongside the veterans, the comradery that comes from successfully executing onto a bombsite. They will come to know the rush of winning your team’s eco round or the demoralizing feeling of getting crushed by a team on their eco. The catharsis that comes with that one insane AWP- flick or impressive spray transfer with your rifle. Together we, as Counter-Strike players, will all reach great heights and fall short of greatness in this exciting new game, but time and time again we’ll say to ourselves  ‘Just one more game.’