Valve has launched a new update for Counter-Strike 2, starting with a feature some fans have wanted since the series began.
As they have revealed in the latest Steam page update, players can now switch from right to left hand and back as your dominant hand. If you’re a left handed in real life, this is one little update that may seem minor to most players, but will make it feel that much more immersive. You set a dominant hand in the settings, but there’s also a key to switch between hands temporarily. One could argue this update was 24 years in the making. But there’s also some other things they added in.
Valve has added a QOL change that could save you money, and also seemingly, get you back into the game more often. The buy menu in between rounds now indicates the minimum amount of money you can expect to get from the upcoming round. You will also get a new “Dropped Weapons” panel, which shows you the items that you or your teammates have dropped in the buy zone.
You can now use grenades with a pin-point accuracy you may not have in real life as a reticle will appear after you pull a grenade pin, so that you can aim it perfectly. You can also set how long it takes before you pull the pin and the reticle comes up.
Grenades mean smoke, and Valve has added options to get around that too. You will be able to set a Radar Map alternate zoom, and choose the key binding for Toggle Radar Zoom, so you can easily switch between a close and distant zoom in the middle of a round.
For the maps, Valve has updated the Active Duty map pool to replace Overpass with Dust II. Finally, Valve has updated the maps themselves, including big changes to Inferno.
Counter-Strike 2 has somewhat gone under the radar since its initial launch, but that’s not something Valve has to worry about. It has a huge enough following to make steady revenue for Valve, and this new title promises a new future in competitive play and esports.
But, we do have to acknowledge that Valve fumbled the ball when it came to the transition from Counter-Strike Global Offensive to Counter-Strike 2. The title dipped to being one of the lowest rated games on Steam’s platform, for a variety of content that was lost, because it was not carried over between games. That includes in-game achievements, the hundreds of dollars worth of skins and items, and perhaps most justifiably, the end of MacOS support.
Truthfully, it isn’t clear how well Valve has repaired their relationship with the Counter-Strike player community yet, but they seem to be working hard to bridge that gap.
