Counter-Strike 2 Launch brings gifts and upgraded store

The 27th of September is a day to remember and a day that Counter-Strike fans will celebrate and cherish in the coming years as the birth of Counter-Strike 2.

The long months of anticipation, testing and fixing all kinds of bugs are officially over. Now, it’™s time to grind and climb up the leaderboard.

As we welcome the next generation of the Counter-Strike franchise, we say ‘œau revoir’ to CS:GO after a decade-long friendship. Through our wins, losses and everything in between.

Though it’™s almost the same game, we’™ll surely miss the history we created as a community, the maps we might never see again and the perfect game, which was nothing but a work of art.

Exclusive badge and music kit

Players who logged in after the release’™s update were met with a couple of gifts from Valve: A soundtrack that the majority have heard of already in the early CS2 announcement videos.

In addition to an exclusive commemorative badge to never forget the good ol’™ CS:GO days.

The badge’™s description says it ‘œcommemorates loyal membership in the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive community prior to the release of Counter-Strike 2’, followed by a ‘œLegends Never Die’ quotation. Painted in a beautiful golden color, the badge comes with a CT and T emblem on each side. In addition to ‘œ2012-2023’ being engraved in the badge paying homage to CS:GO.

Global Offensive Badge

Weekly Care Package & Store:

When players achieve a new XP rank, they’ll be rewarded with a weekly care package. Unlike the previous system, where you’d receive a random item like a skin, spray or a case, this new system allows players to select two items of their preference reward from a range of four options. It gives players more control and choice over what they receive as they progress through the game.

Weekly Care Package

The in-game store has received significant improvements. It now has its own tab on the main menu and has been tidied up for a more user-friendly experience. Notably, there’s a “Market” tab where you can directly buy cases. When you click on the case icon, it will open the Market and display all the skins available in that particular case. However, it won’t take you to the market listing for the case itself.

Additionally, the store is somehow still offering sticker capsules from the BLAST Paris 2023, which were expected to finally be removed with the launch.

Under the “General” tab, you can find a wide range of stickers, music kits, and capsules available for purchase, while in the “Tools” section, you’ll come across items like a StatTrak Swap Tool pack, a Storage Container, and a Name Tag.

These changes aim to make the store more convenient and appealing to CS2 players ‘” an improvement and upgrade from CS:GO.

While the official release of Counter-Strike 2 was considered underwhelming by a big margin of public figures from the community. It was a chance for Valve to attract newer players, however, due to the lack of new content,  there wasn’™t any noticeable increase in the player count after the first day of the release.

When Valve first introduced the Limited Test Beta, there were also statements which suggested there was more to be revealed. “The Limited Test only evaluates a subset of Counter-Strike 2’s features…. But there’™s much more to come”.

Don’™t worry yet because Valve are most likely to introduce newer features as time passes, and they manage to fix all gameplay-related bugs and issues before they can release new content. After all, we’™re playing a shooter game that must run like a well-oiled machine; this is the main priority and what makes Counter-Strike the game we all love and grind.