Since VALORANT launched in June 2020, players have been debating whether it’s better than Counter-Strike. On May 13, Sentinels star TenZ shared his thoughts on the debate.
The 23-year-old was streaming when he was asked how he felt about CS2 and VALORANT’s never-ending comparisons. He claimed CS2 is “more fun” for him, and his main reason is how the mechanics work.
“It felt like every single day you could get better at something mechanically, and that was a really appealing aspect of the game,” TenZ said about CS2. He also added there’s a lot of “cool shit” players can do, like all the different angles you can take when deploying smoke grenades.
However, the pro player defended his primary title, VALORANT, by pointing out there are also tons of fun possibilities there. “I do think you can unleash more of that creativity in VALORANT with like, certain comps, or like, certain characters,” he said.
All in all, TenZ feels CS2 is superior to VALORANT mechanically. “Everything from a mechanical standpoint in Counter-Strike is just fundamentally better, in my opinion,” TenZ added. He underlined how CS2 is less random than VALORANT.
The discussion about both titles feels endless, with pro and casual players alike reigniting it every couple of months. It’s hardly surprising, given how many Counter-Strike pros, still playing Global Offensive at the time transitioned to VALORANT when it came out in 2020. Many of them have already returned to CS, and a few even left it for VALORANT once again.
When Riot released its game four years ago, many esports fans anticipated it would take over the FPS space in the industry and eliminate CS from the contention. Others claimed it would be the other way around, and VALORANT would have no chance of breaking through tough competition. Luckily, after four years, we can all agree both games and esports scenes are doing well and exist in harmony with each other.
