CS:GO turns 11 today—but all players want from Valve is the CS2 release

It's CS:GO's birthday, but is the community that is making all the wishes.

A silhouette of a terrorist and a counter-terrorist in Counter-Strike
Image via Valve

CS:GO is celebrating its 11th birthday on Aug. 21 and fans can’t think of a better opportunity for Valve to finally release CS2 today or in the coming days.

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The release date for CS2 is still up in the air—all that Valve said is that it will release sometime this Summer—but day after day, players think we’re a step closer to the worldwide release. The developer has shown nearly all of the game’s classic maps bar Inferno, Train, and Cobblestone, and fixed many of CS2‘s issues since the closed beta started in March.

Although all players’ predictions have been wrong thus far, they’re convinced that CS2‘s release is coming soon after Valve made a lot of maps available at once in the beta on Aug. 17 and that Valve was waiting for CS:GO‘s 11th birthday to drop the goods.

“Today would be a good opportunity for Valve to do something funny,” one Redditor wrote. “Something funny like releasing CS2,” another Redditor wrote.

While I want to stay optimistic because I want to play CS2 as soon as possible, I find it hard to believe that Valve will release CS2 without making the Inferno overhaul available in the beta first. The map looks so much different based on leaks that I reckon Valve will need to adjust some aspects based on feedback.

Related: All patches and hotfixes in CS2 test beta: Changes, updates, and more

Even if Valve doesn’t release CS2 this week, we’re bound to see some exciting changes in the beta that could change the way we play the game. Valve, for example, is currently testing 12 rounds per half instead of 15 like CS:GO.

Author
Image of Leonardo Biazzi
Leonardo Biazzi
Staff writer and CS:GO lead. Leonardo has been passionate about games since he was a kid and graduated in Journalism in 2018. Before Leonardo joined Dot Esports in 2019, he worked for Brazilian outlet Globo Esporte. Leonardo also worked for HLTV.org between 2020 and 2021 as a senior writer, until he returned to Dot Esports and became part of the staff team.