Today saw the formal release of restricted testing for Counter-Strike 2, which Valve revealed earlier today. FaZe Clan’s karrigan expressed his hopes for the North American scene in the game’s future after the beta’s release.
The Danish in-game leader admitted that he hopes to see North American scene “back where it used to be with a lot of new players,” with the launch of CS2. He underlined that the new engine should bring a bunch of new players who could once again elevate the scene to its former glory.
CS2 is using a completely different engine than CS:GO since it runs on Source 2 engine, which was highly anticipated for Counter-Strike over the past few years. The developers revamped CS:GO’s maps with the engine, alongside introducing new smoke grenade mechanics and an updated tick rate.
While claiming that a new engine could save North American Counter-Strike scene is a bit of a stretch, it could certainly attract new players to the game, which might be a key step in doing so. Currently, only two NA teams find themselves in HLTV’s top 20 ranking—Team Liquid and Complexity—who sit in fourth and eighth places, respectively.
In the past, there were years when teams from the region dominated the scene. In 2019, Team Liquid won Intel Grand Slam season two by securing a couple of A-tier events in a row. A year prior, Cloud9 famously defeated karrigan and FaZe in the final of ELEAGUE Boston CS:GO Major by securing a comeback on the third map, Inferno.
CS2will release in summer 2023, while the developers will invite more and more players to limited beta testing as time goes on.