Following Nvidia's recent leak about the existence of Counter-Strike 2, data miners have now discovered more evidence of a possible Counter-Strike: Global Offensive transition to the Source 2 engine in the most recent Dota 2 update.As discovered and shared by GabeFollower on Twitter, a series of CS: GO-related codes are reportedly hidden inside the recent Dota 2 update. Knowing that Dota 2 is already powered by Source 2 engine, this is yet another hint on the fact that we are going to get a Counter-Strike based on Source 2, be it Counter-Strike 2 or just an upgrade to the existing CS: GO.
According to SteamDB, CS: GO has recently received 10 new depots, one of which is apparently the source 2 workshop tools, as its AppID has been confirmed by people familiar with data mining and Valve's coding details.
Despite all these leaks, Valve remains tight-lipped about the future of Counter-Strike. A recent report from an esports veteran broadcaster revealed that the beta for Counter-Strike 2 might launch as soon as this month. It is also claimed that the new title will feature some of the most-requested features by the Counter-Strike community such as 128-tick rate servers as well as matchmaking improvements with more focus on a fair and esports-based competitive experience.
The anonymous sources claimed that the Counter-Strike 2 project is being overseen by veteran developers who had already worked on previous iterations of the series. It is yet to be seen what would be the final name of this possible project, but an upgrade to the Source 2 engine will likely come with a visual tweak as well as optimization improvements.
It remains unknown what would be the future of CS: GO if a new title arrives. In the case of Dota 2, the game's Source 2 version gradually took the place of the original version until a merger completely removed the older build.
The last time Valve published a new game was back in 2020 when the company released Half-Life: Alyx for VR. Since then, it has been all quiet in the software department of Valve, while the hardware section delivered Steam Deck recently.