Counter-Strike 2 – and a playable beta – could be announced later this month

Get set, Counter-Strike fans – it looks like a new version of CS:GO – possibly called Counter-Strike 2 – might be on the way.

Since there’s no official word from Valve, Steam, or anyone else for that matter, all we can do now is chalk this up to either a bug, hoax, or funny misunderstanding. However, if NVIDIA’s latest leak is correct, and executables named “cs2” and “csgo2” are indeed caught, a beta could be launched later this month.

Along with a strange tweet from Counter-Strike leaker @gabefollower, which revealed the strange additions to the NVIDIA driver update, a journalist Richard Lewis I also stepped up to confirm that “a new version of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive [is] on its way” and believes it “will almost certainly be released under the working title Counter-Strike 2”.

Lewis also assumes that “the tentative release date for the beta will be this month of March with April 1st out”.

Other sources Let’s say the cs2.exe in the NVIDIA engine is “old and irrelevant”, assures players “your skins are safe, no separate games are being made”, and says the Source 2 game is “the real thing”.

“I have obtained fairly reliable information that Valve has been testing CS:GO on Source 2 with the help of third-party QA companies in the US and EU since at least early December,” added gabefollower. “I can’t confirm this 100 percent, but he’s fit enough to participate.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, then, there’s been a bit of confusion about what the game will be – or won’t be.

“it will not be [a] A new game, it won’t be Counter-Strike 2, it won’t even be brand new, just CS:GO Source 2. Your skins are good, and they’ll be available in a new version,” added gabefollower (thanks, Win. gg).

And it’s not like Counter-Strike’s appeal is waning; CS:GO recently broke its peak of concurrent PC users… 11 years after it was released on Steam.

The shooter — which has been around in one form or another for more than 20 years at this point — recently surpassed its own concurrent record, reaching an all-time high of 1.3 million players just last month.