The first international LAN event of Counter-Strike 2 has come to an end and now that the professionals have had a chance to test out the game on the competitive stage, the question must be asked, is CS2 good? IEM Sydney 2023 has come to a close on its final day and crowned FaZe Clan as the kings of CS2, no one can deny the entertainment and talent put on stage these past few days but from a technical standpoint, does the game hold up to Global Offensive? Well, quite a few pros may not think so.
Many professional players have been interviewed throughout the tournament and many conflicting anecdotes have come up from these interviews. Complexity rifler Ricky “floppy” Kemery mentioned the poor in-game audio in CS2 during an interview with HLTV after their match against Monte. The audio in CS2 has been a common complaint among players since its release. When prompted to speak more about the general state of the game he had this to say “The game isn't in its most polished state right now and it doesn't feel as rewarding because of that. There's so many things that can be improved upon in my opinion. It's not like it's unfair, but it's more just… I don't know, it feels kind of lame to me the way the game is right now.” Remember, this is coming from a player who had just won their match and proceeded to make it to the grand final of the tournament. Marco “Snappi” Pfeiffer, the in-game leader of ENCE, also had a strong critique of the game saying, “I think [MR12] is a horrible tactical change and it dumbs down Counter-Strike.” Lowering the max rounds in a half to 12 has been another very controversial topic amongst players since the launch of the game.
On the other hand, you have players like Russel “Twistzz” Van Dulken who reiterated his firm stance against pro players spreading negativity about CS2. “To be honest, I've seen a lot of pros Tweeting and they just say the game is shit, they don't give any details why they think it's bad, or no productive feedback, and that's what hurts the game the most. The community and casuals look up to these players and then whatever notable voice says some shit about the game, that it's bad, they're just gonna leech onto that voice and try to share the same opinion. I think pros need to be doing a way better job at leading by example.”
There are also players who fall more into the middle when it comes to their views on CS2, Ioannis “JT” Theodosiou, the in-game leader for Complexity, did not necessarily like the current state of CS2 although he did show appreciation to the many new opportunities for creativity the game does bring. “Honestly, I don't like the game that much, but I like the changes that they tried to implement like nuking the smokes with HEs, no skyboxes, stuff like that. It's really easy to be creative in this game in terms of strategies, there's nothing blocking you constantly, and it makes the games a lot of fun, especially for IGLs that are just trying to be creative.”
Perhaps most damning of all though is the statements made by players who are not even attending Intel Extreme Master Sydney 2023. Most notable of which is Oleksander “s1mple” Kostyliev who tweeted out on October 6th: “I can clearly tell that if you want to become CS2 pro you still have 3 months, don’t play this shit game rn, wait for updates”
s1mple is widely considered to be the greatest Counter-Strike player of all time so a statement like this is pretty damning. To say it so publicly on a site like X too brings context to why Twistzz believes pros might need to set better examples. s1mple was also not able to attend IEM Sydney 2023 which also lead to more speculation that he may have purposefully skipped out on the event because of the current state of CS2. Popular Counter-Strike streamer and semi-professional player Nikola “Lobanjica” Mijomanović addressed these rumors in an X post he made.
Another ex-professional turned popular streamer Mike “shroud” Grzesiek also shared his controversial opinion about Counter-Strike 2 during a livestream saying “I think this game dies. CS dies with two. I firmly believe that.”
Now that CS2 has been out for nearly a month now, how do you feel about it? Are the critiques by the pros valid or should they be more patient when it comes to Valve's newest first-person shooter.
For more on CS2 stay with us here on ClutchPoints and for more news and updates on all things gaming, stick with ClutchPoints Gaming.
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