Counter-Strike 2’s latest update is here and ready to shake up competitive play with Overpass being removed from the Active Duty pool and left-hand gun swapping implemented as a built-in feature. Here’s everything you need to know!
New Left-Handed Viewmodel!
Left-hand swapping is finally here! No more toggle cl_righthand 0 key binds are needed, after years of the community asking, the Counter-Strike developers have ticked an item off the community’s CS Bucketlist, an in-built lefthand ViewModel!
By default, ‘h’ will swap the gun from the usual right-hand position to the left of the screen. The action will instigate an animation similar to swapping weapons, which has given the player base a new fascination, running! The change has spawned some concern, the holes gunshots leave in smoke grenades being different depending on which side the gun is shooting from.
Dust II is back!
In the first change to the CS2 Active Duty map pool, Overpass is being rotated out for the iconic Dust II breaking a 10-year streak of the map in the pool. Dust II was last in the competitive map pool in November 2022, but while fans embraced the return of the Morocco-based map, there were mixed reactions to Overpass being removed from the pool. Overpass was the joint-fourth most-played map in the pool during the recent PGL CS2 Copenhagen Major, being played 10 times across the tournament. Anubis and Vertigo were played just 7 and 9 times respectively.
Reacting to the update on X, formerly known as Twitter, legendary Astralis AWPer Nicolai “dev1ce” Reedtz said, “I don’t know why overpass had to go since I feel like other maps play the same tempo as Dust2, but Overpass is very different.”
Dev1ce wasn’t alone in critiquing the map choices, caster Daniel “DDK” Kapadia also expressed some reservations with the update’s patch notes, “Nice, Although sad about Overpass. Definitely would have preferred to see -vertigo personally.”
With Mirage being the only map that has never been removed from the competitive pool, some in the community are calling for its head, “Overpass out for Dust II,” fellow caster Vince Hill reacted, “Someone wake up from this nightmare, please. It’s getting too real. Mirage [is] living in my head rent free.
The CS community on Reddit reacted with similar reserved shock with a post titled “Removing Overpass is a Crime” attracting some serious attention. They will have to wait a while for it to appear in the competitive scene however, with ESL announcing that the newly re-introduced map will not feature in the rest of the ongoing ESL Pro League season: “After today’s CS2 update we would like to confirm that EPL S19 will continue to be played on the previous patch and the map pool will remain as is, including de_overpass.”
InferNEW?
Valve has made some changes to CS2’s hottest map, Inferno! By far the most played map at the recent major, with 17 games played, the developers have refined the map by removing clutter such as flowerpots and boxes from the floors. The biggest change, however, is removing the arch across Top Middle.
The arch, which spreads from Boiler towards A Long, will make smoke line-ups easier and make the map feel significantly more open. The arches across the bottom of Banana have also undergone some trimming with the shadow in the area being reduced slightly. Among other smaller changes, the residents of CT spawn have also finally packed the table and chairs outside the Il Monaco Ubriaco restaurant against the wall!
Dropped Weapons on the Buy Menu
There are no excuses for buying when your team has dropped you a gun anymore, the latest update has added a dropped weapons field at the bottom of the buy menu, any gun dropped in your team’s spawn will not automatically pop up in the buy menu screen.
To help with save-rounds, the menu will now also feature a ‘Next Round Minimum’ field in the top right showing the minimum amount of money you’re guaranteed to have next round based on your current spending.
Grenade Crosshair
Another exciting change is for throwing grenades, if you hold down the throw button on any grenade for two seconds, a full-screen crosshair will pop up allowing you to better line up your game-changing cross-map smoke! In addition to toggling the feature, the two-second timer can also be changed to a different interval for each grenade type.
Also in the update, is an ‘in-air’ icon in the kill feed, an icon to indicate bots in the scoreboard, and an alternate radar function designed to help the player not to get lost in smokes!
More smaller-scale changes include buffing the movement speed and attack zone of the Zeus tazer in addition to giving it a $100 kill reward in competitive game modes. The CZ75-Auto will also see a kill reward change, from $100 to $300 but the XM1014 will see its kill reward reduced from $900 to $600.
The developers have also added the long-awaited ability to play practice and workshop maps with your friends and an Overwatch system to allow match demo review by trusted partners.
