It’s been two whole years since CS2 was announced. Well, two years and three days if you’re going to be pedantic.

We hate it when you do that.

We had big, big dreams back then. Simpler times. When we heard the smoke grenades were going to be more than just tools for gla1ve to abuse and tarik and Stewie to run through, we were excited.

It looked better, smokes were better, and… well, we had reservations. Not as many as Lobanjica, but reservations nonetheless.

Two years later, and we have mixed opinions. CS2 has not been without its problems, and it’s probably still an inferior experience to CSGO. It’s not all bad, though.

The smokes are a lot better, and the game is undoubtedly prettier. It’s brought in new players, new viewers and the changes to Premier were, on the surface, excellent.

But none of that really matters - because it still doesn’t feel right.

It’s hard to quantify what makes a game great sometimes, and CSGO just felt right. Trying to recreate something as transient and subjective as feeling is largely futile, but Valve in their infinite wisdom, tried.

Subtick just doesn’t feel as smooth as 128 tick, and certainly, early on, was a buggy mess. It’s a lot better than it was, but it does feel like Valve overcomplicated things. Just give us 128 tick. We weren’t asking for a lot.

The performance is worse, which is understandable given the graphical upgrade – but one has to remember that nobody was playing CS for the graphics. If Football Manager upgraded their graphics and made the performance worse, that would be a terrible decision.

Or if they upgraded the graphics and just never brought the game out.

There’s no community servers, no Danger Zone, no working anti-cheat (mind you, there wasn’t one on CSGO) and just an overall feeling of no polish.

CS2 isn’t finished yet - in more ways than one. Here’s to hoping the next eight years will be better.

H/T to u/busywinterfell for reminding us of the anniversary. Check his reddit thread and read the community’s verdict – at your own risk.