It looks like Counter-Strike 2 will launch next week

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As if 2023 wasn't stacked enough Valve seems to be teasing Counter-Strike 2's impending launch

Counter Strike 2 key art
(Image credit: Valve)

With one tweet, Valve has set the hearts of competitive FPS fans aflame, seemingly teasing the impending launch of Counter-Strike 2 for Wednesday, September 27.

"What are you doing next Wednesday?" the official Counter-Strike account asks on Twitter. That would be a pretty innocuous tweet for pretty much anybody else, but Valve is known for dropping its biggest announcements in the most casual, sudden ways. In any case, pretty much the entire competitive FPS community is taking this tweet to mean that CS2 will launch in seven days' time.

Counter-Strike 2 had only previously been announced for "this summer," and September 27 misses the calendar end of the season by just a few days. Valve is pretty legendary for taking its sweet time in development on its projects, so as far as "Valve time" goes a delay of a few days is barely worth noting.

Described by Valve as "the largest technical leap forward in Counter-Strike’s history," CS2 is set to be a free upgrade for the mega-popular Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, which has spent years as the biggest game on Steam. Fans have already been able to try out and provide feedback on the new game thanks to the Counter-Strike 2 Limited Test.

The original Counter-Strike launched way back in 2000 as a mod for Half-Life, and while it's taken various forms over the years, Valve's own Global Offensive, originally released in 2012, is basically the version of record these days. By fully embracing the number '2' after all these years, Valve is signaling that this new is a heck of a big deal.

Our list of the best FPS games might be in line for a shakeup.

Dustin Bailey
Dustin Bailey
Staff Writer

Dustin Bailey joined the GamesRadar team as a Staff Writer in May 2022, and is currently based in Missouri. He's been covering games (with occasional dalliances in the worlds of anime and pro wrestling) since 2015, first as a freelancer, then as a news writer at PCGamesN for nearly five years. His love for games was sparked somewhere between Metal Gear Solid 2 and Knights of the Old Republic, and these days you can usually find him splitting his entertainment time between retro gaming, the latest big action-adventure title, or a long haul in American Truck Simulator.