Today, on 9/27/2023, the long wait of Counter-Strike fans finally came to an end. We show you what you need to know about the release of CS2.
Ever since Counter-Strike 2 was announced in March 2023 as the successor to the popular e-sports title Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, fans have been waiting for news about the official release of the tactical shooter – and it could be surprisingly close.
We’ll show you everything you need to know about the release here.
Update, September 27, 2023, 21:40: The article originally appeared on September 26, when it was still a speculation of the community that release Counter-Strike 2 would be released on Wednesday. We updated the article on the evening of September 27, after Counter-Strike 2 was released.
Counter-Strike 2 Release: date and time
What do we know about the release? Counter-Strike 2 was officially released as an update for CS:GO at 22:40 on September 27, 2023.
Just in time for the release, Valve also released a short launch trailer for Counter-Strike 2, in which they show the gameplay as well as some revised maps of the tactical shooter.
What was previously known about the release of CS2? Already on September 20, a post from the official Twitter account of Counter-Strike 2 caused speculation in the community. Players suspected in the run-up to the release, CS2 could appear on 27 September.
In the tweet, the CS2 account asked what Twitter users will do next Wednesday. Fans believe this means CS2 will be fully released on said day.
We embed the tweet from the CS2 account for you here:
What time is the release? An exact time was not known for the release in advance, because the release on September 27 was only a speculation of the community. According to rumors, the CS:GO successor should be released at 19:00 German time, but nothing came of it.
Hours later, at 22:40, the time had come and CS2 replaced CS:GO.
Counter-Strike 2 on Steam: price and download
This is known about the price of CS2: Counter-Strike will be released as a free upgrade of CS:GO, which will also be playable as free-to-play. This was announced by Valve on the official Website of Counter-Strike.
What do we know about the download of CS2? According to Steam, the download of Counter-Strike 2 is 33.6 GB in total, which is minimally larger than CS:GO.
If the download causes problems at first or the store page still shows CS:GO, it helped us to quit Steam completely – if necessary even via the task manager.
During the limited testing period of Counter-Strike 2, which ran since March 2023, the download of CS2 was almost 15 GB.
Is Counter-Strike 2 coming to PS5, PS4 and Xbox Series?
This is what we know about a console release: At the current time, nothing is known about a release of Counter-Strike 2 on PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S or Xbox One. Also the limited test phase of CS2 is and was not playable on consoles.
Since CS:GO is also not available on Xbox or PlayStation, the chances of a console release for Counter-Strike 2 are slim.
Counter-Strike 2 on PS5, PS4 or Xbox – Is the shooter coming for consoles?