Counter-Strike 2 has finally been released to much excitement and hype from the community. The release is not completely positive though as many players still receive the game with some skepticism. The limited test of CS2 was an overall positive experience for many but a large portion of the player base was concerned with how different the gunplay, movement, and audio felt with many believing that the game just was not ready for a full release. Well, now that Valve has gone and fully released the game, have they patched things up enough to ease these concerns? Let's take a look at the latest CS2 release notes Valve posted along with the release of the game.

Gameplay

  • Enabled Competitive matchmaking
  • Enabled Wingman matchmaking
  • Enabled Private Matchmaking
  • Added Training Day, a brief introductory experience for brand-new players
  • Improved player-against-player movement collision
  • Improved consistency of bullet penetration
  • Player reflections in water are now occluded by smoke
  • Molotov fire now floats above the water
  • Fixed character ambient occlusion being visible through walls
  • C4 bomb lights don't reflect through walls
  • Fixed some rare cases of view model lighting corruption
  • Adjusted smoke behavior to cover cases where smoke would stop less than a player's height above the ground
  • Fix various bugs with switching teams in the middle of offline Deathmatch
  • Fixed Famas reloading too early
  • Chickens can finally fall off Vertigo

Looking through the CS2 release notes you'll find a few notable ones including several bug fixes and changes to utility. Many of the bug fixes, like the consistency of player collision and bullet penetration, attempt to keep CS2 as similar to Global Offensive as possible. The utility changes will also help appease the many concerns of players and the changes in smokes will completely remove the infamous ‘Valorant One-Way'.

Sound

  • Added the new CS2 default music kit
  • Added new audio customization settings
  • Various mix tweaks and adjustments
  • Various bug fixes related to music kits
  • Updated the game startup sound
  • Added background ambiance to main menu scenes
  • Restored the clutch_mode_toggle function
  • Fixed a bug where sometimes c4 defuse and planting sounds could not be heard in certain locations
  • Fixed some surfaces being incorrectly tagged causing incorrect footstep sounds in certain locations
  • Fixed a bug where attackers could not hear headshot feedback through wall bangs or smokes
  • Body damage feedback for attackers will now play within the same distance as it does for onlookers through smokes and wall bangs
  • Fixed a bug where scoping in affected directional sound
  • First-person damage sounds are now more impactful
  • Removed several legacy audio convars that existed in CS:GO but never had an effect in CS2

The audio was one of the biggest issues players had with the limited test of Counter-Strike 2. Lots of players have issues with misleading audio that can cause players to lose rounds or even games. The CS2 release notes have made it clear that Valve made fixing the audio a priority for the release of the game but it remains to be seen if these changes will be enough to solve all players' audio issues.

Animation

  • Adjusted character additive lean animation
  • Adjusted jump animation, particularly when repeatedly jumping
  • Adjusted jiggle-peeking animation
  • Adjusted animated character head position relative to the camera position
  • Added bullet belt to Negev
  • Reduced foot sliding when carrying slower weapons
  • Fixed character momentarily standing during crouch-planting animation
  • Fixed incorrect viewmodel deployment speeds
  • Fixed pops in some weapon inspection animations
  • Inspecting weapons may now interrupt the deployment animation

Matchmaking

  • When one or more party members get convicted of cheating and permanently banned, all their associates will be penalized with the loss of Profile Rank and CS Rating
  • In Premier, players with a very high established CS Rating are not allowed to party with accounts that do not have an established CS Rating

Maps

  • Various bug fixes and tweaks for all shipped maps
  • Adjusted vertical audio occlusion boundaries in Nuke and Vertigo
  • Added an extra bell in Inferno
  • Casual and Deathmatch maps are now separated into multiple map groups

Miscellaneous

  • CS:GO Players who started playing more than a week ago will receive a commemorative CS:GO coin and CS:GO Music Kit
  • Added Store tab to the main menu
  • Enabled all interactions with inventory items
  • Replaced weekly drops with a weekly Care Package. Choose from weapon cases, weapon finishes, and graffiti
  • Added demo playback support
  • Added the ability to favorite and shuffle loadout items
  • Added new item icons
  • Office and Vertigo are available as main menu scenery
  • Various updates for weapon finishes, including fixing overly strong wear on several Custom Paint Job finishes
  • Reworked Phoenix Street Soldier balaclava texture to resolve visibility issues
  • Enabled animated eyes on agent character models

The addition of the store tab and the weekly care package system should be some nice quality of life changes for players, especially ones tired of getting graffitis that they'll never use. The most impactful addition to the game in this miscellaneous section though, must be the commemorative CS:GO coin and music kit. Many players have expressed their love for CS:GO and these commemorative items are one of the few remaining pieces of memorabilia players will keep of the beloved shooter.

Workshop Tools

  • Game clients running in workshop tools mode are not allowed to connect to VAC secure game servers
  • Added an all-new help system featuring contextually relevant guides and information. Guides include grayscale value ranges for alpha channel masking, paint-by-number mask color assignments based on current finish type, and much more!
  • Removed dynamic props from solid color inspect backgrounds

As you can see, it looks like keeping CS2 as close to Global Offensive as possible was one of Valve's main priorities and while it may not be perfect yet it is definitely a step in the right direction. This is definitely not going to be the last update or fix to many of the issues in Counter-Strike 2 either. What do you think about the latest CS2 release notes? Was the game ready to be released or did it need some more time to fix all the issues? Stick with us here in ClutchPoints for more on Counter-Strike 2. Also, for more news and updates on all things gaming, stick with ClutchPoints Gaming.