It's hard to truly gauge the impact that Counter-Strike had on the video games industry. After all, it inspired the likes of Call of Duty and Battlefield, ushering in the global dominance of online FPS games. With CS:GO, we got a modern and refined version of the game – which is still as popular as it ever was. However, it now looks like Valve is ready to take the next step with the genre defining series.
Rumblings of a new game under the CS banner have been making the rounds since early March, and the latest development appears to be a trademark filing by Valve for ‘CS2’ (thanks, PCGamesN). It all started when journalist Richard Lewis spoke to developers who claimed that Counter-Strike 2 is real and around the corner. After that, files for the supposed CS:GO 2 leaked as an update for Dota 2 included references to CS:GO on Source 2 within its code.
This latest development is perhaps the most solid piece of evidence that Valve is working on a new Counter-Strike project, although it's still unclear what exactly it is. Valve submitted a trademark application to the United States Patent and Trademark Office for ‘CS2’. Along with this were two related serial numbers, which are seemingly linked to Counter-Strike and CSGO.
There are two primary theories about what Valve is up to. The first, and more expected one is updating the CS:GO to Source 2 engine. However, as suggested by this filing, it could be that Valve is working on an entirely new game, 'CS2'. As per the wording in the filing Valve may drop the 'Global Offensive' name, and straight-up go for Counter-Strike 2. However, Gabe Newell is good at keeping secrets, and we might only learn the truth when he wants us to. Thankfully, according to the reports, it's just "around the corner".
Just to illustrate how much of a loyal fan base there is for the title, not only did CS:GO break its all-time peak concurrent player count three times this year, but players are still shelling out big sums of money to purchase cosmetics, like this $160,000 AK-47 skin.