Valve, Fix Your Fucking Game

Counter-Strike 2 was released on the 27th of September, 2023, and yet, if you ask any player about the state of the game, you will probably get the same reply: “It’s completely unplayable”. And sure, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, you can play the title, but it’s definitely not what I would call fun.

To start, the amount of cheaters in Premier matchmaking would be hilarious if it weren’t so sad. Originally, I thought people were exaggerating the problem, as I wasn’t in the highest rank ranges. Now I made it into the ~25K range, and, well, I would love to be back to what I was. Out of my last 10 matches, something like four had someone rage-hacking, and I am pretty sure there were another two with people wall-hacking.

But VAC being basically non-existent is not the only issue, there’s also the community-titled “CS2 Moments” — when you shoot the enemy very clearly before they shoot you, but you’re the one who dies. This happens because of the way subtick (the new system Valve uses for their official servers, in which actions are timestamped before being sent in each tick) handles ping is so godawful, it gives high-ping players the advantage.

Now, these are the main issues, but if you thought that was everything that’s wrong with the game, you couldn’t be further from the truth. A lot of game modes from the Global Offensive days are still gone: Danger Zone, Flying Scoutsman, Demolition, and — even weirder — Retakes, which was present in the CS2 beta but is now gone! We also haven’t received an Operation since September 2021, almost four years ago. Some of the best and most liked maps are still missing as well: no Cache, Cobblestone, or Tuscan. In the Wingman mode, Shortdust, which was personally my favourite map in Counter-Strike, is also not present anywhere. And hey, Valve, whenever you introduce a new game-breaking bug, it might be a good idea to fix it quickly, and not let it linger for over a week and then only put a band-aid on it that reduces the quality of life.

Now, even though I was complaining a lot up until now, Counter-Strike 2 isn’t 100% bad. Valve has added some really nice features and pushed good updates. For example, the changes to Premier matchmaking, introducing seasons, a leaderboard, and making it the primary gamemode for competition are something I adore. The change to MR13 and the updates to CT economy are also huge positives for me, especially given how long and boring playing as CT could be back in CS:GO. Some quality of life changes are also nice, such as the Grenade Crosshair setting that I find absolutely lifesaving for some nade lineups. Of course, the move to a new engine was by itself pretty good, given how much better the graphics are now.

And of course, there’s the latest big update — changing the entire animation system to AnimGraph2. This is one of the best things that Valve decided to do; not only does it already look better, but it’s very likely that this means all the animations will be reworked, which I am a big fan of. The ones which have already changed, such as the Glock draw animation, are considerably better than the old ones, and I will be very happy to see everything changing to that level of smoothness.

So, CS2 isn’t the worst game in the world, and Valve is taking some good steps toward improving the title, but even though some things are already better than CS:GO, and some things are on the track to be better, the base gameplay is still just not as good. I would love being able to say it’s enjoyable, but basically always playing with cheaters, and the game just lying to me sometimes, makes everything feel absolutely horrible. So what I have to say to Valve is really just this: you have a good game in your hands, just please, fucking fix it already.