Valve unleashed the original Counter-Strike all the way back in 1999, the year our computers were meant to explode -- but they obviously didn't -- and now we're hearing news that Counter-Strike 2 isn't just real, but it's "coming soon".

The news of Counter-Strike 2 is coming from Richard Lewis, a journalist who has been pretty on the money regarding Counter-Strike stories over the years, where he said his sources (that wish to remain anonymous, obviously) said that "a new version of Counter-Strikwe is on its way and that had been worked on for some time". Lewis continued, explaining that "the new version is almost certainly set to be released under the working title Counter-Strike 2 and the tentative release date for the beta is in this month of March with April 1st at the outside".

Lewis said that his sources teased that the creation of Counter-Strike 2 had been something of "a priority" for Valve's team, which "includes members that have overseen development of previous iterations in the Counter-Strike franchise". The same sources said that the development of Counter-Strike 2 explains "why some issues with CS:GO have been largely unattended to for some time". Lewis continued: "the big priority is getting this out and then polishing it, fixing any bugs and bringing it up to the level people expect from CS".

Counter-Strike 2: Powered By Source 2 Engine

Valve is reportedly using its latest Source 2 engine for Counter-Strike 2, which makes sense given its their latest engine... with Lewis adding that the optimisation and graphical fidelity of CS2 will be far greater than any previous Counter-Strike title. He adds that it will come at a cost: performance for gamers on lower-end PCs... but if the game is a big upgrade, I don't think gamers are going to mind. Although, Lewis does note -- and he's not wrong -- that Valve historically "always had a philosophy of empowering those with every-day gaming rigs to be able to play their games".

We are also expecting Valve to shift their official servers to be 128 tick, which will match Counter-Strike rival, Valorant. Lewis' sources confirmed that "this would be the case" and that this feature would "likely be ready at the launch of the beta". Counter-Strike 2 will also reportedly have a massively improved match-matching system, which would remove the need for third-party pugging services. The CS and CS:GO communities have had to suffer from uneven match-making and long times between rank ups... which seems to be solved with Counter-Strike 2.

Lewis' sources tease that Counter-Strike 2 was "about ready to go" and that the game had already been tested by an "unnamed group of professional players" that Valve flew out to their headquarters in Seattle, Washington, USA. I guess we're about to see what they played, and get a taste of it for ourselves... real, real soon. Stick together, team.

You can read the entire report from Richard Lewis on his personal Substack here.