CS:GO Source 2: Will it arrive anytime soon?

CS:GO fans have for a long time been speculating about the release of CS:GO Source 2, which has been rumored for quite a while. For years, fans of one of the biggest games on Steam have been expecting their beloved favorite game to get upgraded imminently to the exact same engine powering Half-Life: Alyx.

But CS:GO Source 2 may still be years away… Or not?

Counter-Strike is very old as many of you already may know. Even CS:GO, the most recent sequel of the Counter-Strike series, has now been around for more than 10 years. In all this time, CS:GO has grown in all possible aspects, but most notably in terms of system requirements. If you want to get the best out of the experience you need more than 300 FPS, which requires a modern-day expensive computer. A lot of you are probably asking yourself how can a game this old require so much from a computer system? Well, the biggest reason for that is CS:GO’s game engine called Source. The game engine is kind of outdated and old, while it also lacks modern-day features. It has also been phased out in lots of Valve’s other games by a newer engine. This is why the CS:GO fans are begging for the release of CS:GO Source 2.

CS:GO is one of the biggest and most popular games on the market, especially when looking at it competitive wise. And it may come as a surprise for many that the Source engine is the same Half-Life 2 was made with all the way back in 2003. Obviously, the developers at Valve have added new features and changed CS:GO’s appearance along the way, but it is fair to say that it has come at the cost of performance. When you look at games like APEX or Rainbow Six, CS:GO doesn’t hold a candle to them even though the system requirements are almost as high. Especially if you want a reasonable amount of FPS and play competitively against good players. All this is something that CS:GO Source 2 could help with.

The Conspiracy Club CS10 sticker

After the release of the 10-year anniversary sticker capsule in CS:GO, fans quickly realized that the developers from Valve somehow made fun of releasing the CS:GO Source 2 engine, with one of the stickers referring directly to this.

The name of the sticker probably says it all. Valve and the developers certainly know that CS:GO fans are waiting for CS:GO Source 2, but not a single person would expect Valve to make any kind of reference to it at all. Not long after the release of the sticker capsule, videos also began circulating on the internet about a hidden message in the design of the so-called Conspiracy Club Sticker, that would reveal the CS:GO Source 2 release date. However, it turned out that the video was fake as people started to scratch their sticker without seeing any kind of mysterious and hidden message.

First gameplay footage of CS:GO Source 2 – But not from Valve

In the beginning of August 2022, gameplay footage of CS:GO Source 2 could be found on YouTube, but it didn’t come from Valve themselves. A team of modders and game-makers, represented by the Valve content creator channel, Gabefollower, rebuilt Counter-Strike: Global Offensive in Source 2 from the ground up. The team claimed they remade the game without using a single line of code from the original CS:GO game, and that they had created all mechanics and systems from zero. The CS:GO Source 2 community-driven project of the team is still in its beginning, with the first gameplay footage simply showcasing the intended player experience in CS:GO Source 2. Game-makers and modders of the project claimed that they had developed it all within 6 months, which suggests that a full version of CS:GO Source 2 may not even take that much time to make completely.

You can watch the gameplay footage of CS:GO Source 2 right here:

Another set of leaks – CS:GO Source 2

On August 30, 2022, another leak gave CS:GO players hopes of a CS:GO Source 2 release in the near future.

The 1.36.8.4 form of CS:GO, which is reportedly a Source 2 port of the game, was being played on the 730 App ID on Steam, which is a regular CS:GO version that players use, according to a leaker named Aquarius on Twitter.

Aquarius revealed that the developers from Valve had been making changes to CS:GO game files. They explained that Valve made a backup version of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, which was followed by an update that has some server and client tweaks in it.

Even though it is tough to say whether this is just Valve testing some minor changes to CS:GO or if they really intend to release the CS:GO Source 2 engine soon, the leaker has been reporting the developers' work on Source 2 for months, and it looks like they are actually focusing on the Source 2 engine behind the scenes.

According to some other leaks from Aquarius, Valve developers also loaded one of the most popular maps, Cobblestone, to CS:GO with the Source 2 engine. Some data that reads “Offline Casual decbbles2,” hinted that a new version of the fan-favorite Cbble had been launched on the Source 2 engine.