Counter-Strike 2 is now Ancient

The map, that is. The Oct. 6th build of the game presented a mapception to me that I have yet to see replicated elsewhere.

de_ancient infected every other map by first deleting another visually, before inserting itself on top of every other map in the game.

This was fixed upon a restart, but I never was able to figure out how this triggered.

 

Counter-Strike 2 honestly is in a public beta. I don’t think anyone is in disagreement here with how the game is missing a ton of features from its predecessor, is generally unpolished compared to what might have been expected, and seems to have been somewhat haphazardly shoved out the door to meet an advertised release window and avoid yet another classic “Valve Time” situation.

 

To Valve’s credit, they have managed to outright not miss their last two major titles’ release dates or windows. Half-Life Alyx launched right when it was advertised to, come pandemic or high water, and Counter-Strike 2 hit its “Summer 2023” release window. One of these released with little issue compared to the other, though.

Overall, it is still Counter-Strike. The gameplay is there, and so far the “2” seems to only refer to the fact that a brand-new engine is in play with some nice visual and performance tweaks. I have, for the first time in my life, been hooked on playing CS, instead of just hearing reports of it. Make of that what you will.