To those on the outside, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive has been on the decline, with players flocking to Riot Games’ shiny new FPS game Valorant over Valve’s classic shooter. It looks like the developer may be planning something exciting for the game, though, as two executables found in a recent NVIDIA driver update point to a possible Counter-Strike 2 release date, or at least a Source 2 port of the current game.
As spotted by a fan called u/DAOWAce but reported by CSGO content creator Aquarius ‘Aquaismissing,’ the latest round of NVIDIA drivers seemingly has “support for unknown app executables called ‘csgos2.exe’ and ‘cs2.exe.'”
They then clarify that cs2.exe appears to be a “leftover from 2014,” relating to a similar leak showing off ‘cs2.exe’ that was quickly debunked. They do claim, however, that “Source 2 is happening; it’s a real thing with it’s own executable ‘csgos2.exe'”
Importantly, Aquarius states that the data points to the fact there’s ” no separate games being made” and that “your skins are safe.”
In the wake of these findings, PCGamesN has reached out to Valve for further information, and will update this post as and when new news drops.
It goes without saying that CSGO is a very old game, and while some say that the game is feeling it’s age, it has broken it’s peak player count two weeks running in February 2023 alone. The CSGO community is what keeps the game alive, and they’re determined that it’s no ‘dead game.’
Whether or not there’s any substance in a Counter-Strike 2, though, remains to be seen. Sure, it’s exciting, but as Aquarius notes “it might be that ‘Counter-Strike’ was taken (by 1.6) and Valve devs got lazy, so they just added ‘2’ at the end.” What I’m saying is, take all of this with a pinch of salt.
Either way, if this revelation has inspired you to dive back into the iconic shooter, we have a rundown of the CSGO ranks to give you something to aspire to, as well as a list of the cheapest CSGO knives if you fancy kitting out your arsenal without breaking the bank.