If you’re a bit like us, all this CS2 speculation is starting to become impossible to track.

Between the Tweets, Reddit posts, youtube videos, conspiracy theories, and ESL content, it’s like a maze of information.

So, we’ve gathered the important information from the last week to give you a quick rundown.

Leaderboards and release date?

According to CS2 Twitter sleuth @ThourCS, CS2 will incorporate leaderboards. These will be specifically for the premiere game mode.

If you’ve played Valorant, you’ve probably seen their version of this exact concept. CS2’s version has some major differences though, instead of just showing your region you’ll be able to select between multiple options. These are Global, Regional, Country, and Friends. The version in the beta code right now also indicates that it’ll be seasonal, with these dates currently in the game:

1. Limited Test / Beta Season
2. 2023 Fall (23rd Sept - 22nd Dec 2023)
3. 2024 Spring (20th Mar - 21st Jun 2024)
4. 2024 Fall (22nd Sept - 21st Dec 2024)

Notice something interesting? If the first season starts on the 23rd… that means the game will come out on that day or a bit before. Did we just find the release date?

Who knows though, Valve works on their own time and could easily delay this by another year.

New maps

The two newest maps in the game have been given the CS2 treatment, and frankly Ancient and Anubis might be the most gorgeous ones so far. Sorry Overpass, we still love you.

Ancient being as recent as it is, probably was mapped with Source 2 in mind. There’s not that much that’s changed, it’s mostly lighting and that’s a good thing. The main issue a lot of people seem to have with Ancient is the fact you can’t bloody see anyone.

The other most pronounced change on Ancient is the details, the most prominent of which being Donut.

That Ancient image comes from 3kliksphillip’s great video on the changes made to Anubis, which goes into detail on why it looks so damn good. And it summarizes the Anubis update quite well, it just looks way better. The only real gameplay adjustment they made is to the boats near A main, where the planks have been moved to stop you from getting caught on them. I feel seen.

The final update related to the two maps was just removing Ancient from the competitive pool and adding Anubis into it. We can only hope the release date we mentioned earlier is correct if this is the size of update we’re getting.

The End

No seriously, that was it.

The constant discussion around CS2 makes it feel so overwhelming, but so far it’s a prettier, slightly different version of… CS. Which, is perfect, CS:GO has stayed as relevant as it is for as long as it has because it’s amazing in its current state. Gameplay wise anyway, the graphical update was needed and the changed mechanics are only a plus to keep it spicy.

We’ll see you on the server when the 23rd rolls around. We hope.

While Saudi Arabia isn’t exactly known for its deep history in CSGO or its prestige in terms of big events in esports, it sure as hell is no less egregious than Malta.

Obviously as long as you ignore the whole, erm, human rights thing. Which is a tall order, admittedly.

Gamers8 is the newest attempt at actualising Saudi Arabia’s attempts at using esports to create a bizarre sort of Saudi chic with the youths. We’re not sure it’ll work, but in the meantime we do get to watch some of the best teams in the world play each other, so… swings and roundabouts.

Of the top ten in the world, only Astralis and MOUZ miss out, with NIP in (a generous) 11th position also not attending. Liquid, Apeks, fnatic, VP, 9INE, FURIA, MIBR and the most out-there pick, Falcons, make up the remaining eight.

Falcons are a fun one - the addition of BOROS, lauNX and mhL make them a hipster’s dream team. The sort of team you might find in a thread in the HLTV forums, posted by a psilocybin-huffing lunatic with the name send_me_CS_players_feet.

Unfortunately, we’ll probably only see them for one whole series. It’s single elimination, and they face Heroic. Unlucky.

Apeks and GamerLegion meet for the title of ‘least fluky Major run’ up for grabs, while fnatic have the unenviable task of taking down the newest Cloud9 colossus.

The winner of the latter squares off with either Liquid or ENCE. So, ENCE.

FaZe face Virtus.pro, who’ve been smashing some middling teams in CrazyGaming1337 Summer Bash 2k23 or whatever tournament they’ve been in recently, and G2 will inevitably lose to 9INE to complete the typical G2 cycle.

FURIA’s nightmare seems likely to continue as they are matched up with NAVI, and MIBR have an even harder game. You fly all the way to Saudi Arabia just to play Vitality in a BO3, and probably go home.

The nice thing about this tournament is it starts Wednesday, and finishes Sunday. Which means we can allocate more of the season to ESL Pro League.

ESL clearly realise that less can be more, and yet…

You know that meme that’s like “man who thought he had lost all hope loses last bit of hope he didn’t even know he had”?

On an unrelated note…

Evil Geniuses fell in both Open Qualifiers for IEM Sydney just to qualify for the Closed Qualifier. The qualifier, for the qualifier, that only includes NA teams. Evil Geniuses still failed.

That means they’re probably not even the fourth best team in a region that has four actual organisations in it. To rub salt in the gaping, gaping wound, it was Stanislaw and wiz’ new team ‘Forsaken’ that eventually qualified over them.

M80 also made it in over them, with favourite of the newsletter malbsMd dropping the guillotine with 85 kills over three maps in the first Open Qualifier.

Where, exactly, do EG go from here? They failed in their attempts to get a big name team (reportedly), they let go of their underperforming main team, and though having this young team buys them a little bit of favour, higher-ups surely cannot be happy.

Progress can be slow, but as long as it’s progress, it’s fine. EG can’t even seem to tread water; and while we hate sticking the boot in too much when this is, essentially, an academy team… there wasn’t a lot else on this week.

Erm, we mean, their progress doesn’t ever seem to be forward. Players come into EG and look fine at first, but either stagnate or fall off completely. The one exception seems to be junior, who stood out as a bright spot in both eventual losses.

Somehow, junior is now EG’s best chance at a saviour.

✨ Looking freshhh

• Not only has FACEIT’s UI completely changed, they’ve also disabled five-stacking in the premium queue. No more Danish five stacks!
• Some of us are still a bit confused of what the new CS2 logo looks like. We don’t really care, we don’t have access anyways.
• Have you ever wanted to cram your face into every detail of Anubis on CS2? No? Well 2kliks did it anyways.

😠 A bad sport

• Looks like someone (more like some1win) felt like taking an easy default win. What a masterful depiction of your skill, 1win esports.
• BIG can’t be sore losers after this one. Wu-Tang Clan just ain’t nothing to f with.

🍇 Oh we ‘member

• Which legends are still around, and which org is their Al-Nassr?
• Who is NA’s best according to you? Hiko, ELiGE, Twistzz? Our money’s on m0E.