Counter-Strike 2 is here.

Come take a look around. Counter-Strike 2 is the largest technical leap forward in Counter-Strike's history, supporting new features today and updates for years to come.

If you're a returning player you'll find your favorite maps and matchmaking modes right where you left them, along with a revamped Premier mode where you can establish your all-new CS Rating. Rise through the ranks and see where you stand on global and regional leaderboards.

For new players, learn the basics with some offline training and jump into Casual and Deathmatch to hone your skills. Once you've unlocked Competitive matchmaking you'll be off to the races.

Grab your friends, and come join millions of players around the world. Welcome to Counter-Strike 2.

[ COUNTER-STRIKE 2 ]

• Counter-Strike 2 is now available and free to play
  
• Season One of Premier has begun

[ GAMEPLAY ]

• Enabled Competitive matchmaking
  
• Enabled Wingman matchmaking
  
• Enabled Private Matchmaking
  
• Added Training Day, a brief introductory experience for brand new players
  
• Improved player-against-player movement collision
  
• Improved consistency of bullet penetration
  
• Player reflections in water are now occluded by smoke
  
• Molotov fire now floats above the water
  
• Fixed character ambient occlusion being visible through walls
  
• C4 bomb lights don't reflect through walls
  
• Fixed some rare cases of viewmodel lighting corruption
  
• Adjusted smoke behavior to cover cases where smoke would stop less than a player's height above the ground
  
• Fix various bugs with switching teams in the middle of offline Deathmatch
  
• Fixed Famas reloading too early
  
• Chickens can finally fall off Vertigo

[ SOUND ]

• Added the new CS2 default music kit
  
• Added new audio customization settings
  
• Various mix tweaks and adjustments
  
• Various bug fixes related to music kits
  
• Updated the game startup sound
  
• Added background ambience to main menu scenes
  
• Restored the clutch_mode_toggle function
  
• Fixed a bug where sometimes c4 defuse and planting sounds could not be heard in certain locations
  
• Fixed some surfaces being incorrectly tagged causing incorrect footstep sounds in certain locations
  
• Fixed a bug where attackers could not hear headshot feedback through wallbangs or smokes
  
• Body damage feedback for attackers will now play within the same distance as it does for onlookers through smokes and wallbangs
  
• Fixed a bug where scoping in affected directional sound
  
• First person damage sounds are now more impactful
  
• Removed several legacy audio convars that existed in CS:GO but never had an effect in CS2

[ ANIMATION ]

• Adjusted character additive lean animation
  
• Adjusted jump animation, particularly when repeatedly jumping
  
• Adjusted jiggle-peeking animation
  
• Adjusted animated character head position relative to camera position
  
• Added bullet belt to negev
  
• Reduced foot sliding when carrying slower weapons
  
• Fixed character momentarily standing during crouch-planting animation
  
• Fixed incorrect viewmodel deploy speeds
  
• Fixed pops in some weapon inspect animations
  
• Inspecting weapons may now interrupt deploy animation

[ MATCHMAKING ]

• When one or more party members get convicted of cheating and permanently banned, all their associates will be penalized with loss of Profile Rank and CS Rating
  
• In Premier, players with a very high established CS Rating are not allowed to party with accounts that do not have an established CS Rating

[ MAPS ]

• Various bug fixes and tweaks for all shipped maps
  
• Adjusted vertical audio occlusion boundaries in Nuke and Vertigo
  
• Added an extra bell in Inferno
  
• Casual and Deathmatch maps are now separated into multiple map groups

[ MISC ]

• CS:GO Players who started playing more than a week ago will receive a commemorative CS:GO coin and CS:GO Music Kit
  
• Added Store tab to main menu
  
• Enabled all interactions with inventory items
  
• Replaced weekly drops with a weekly Care Package. Choose from weapon cases, weapon finishes, and graffiti
  
• Added demo playback support
  
• Added the ability to favorite and shuffle loadout items
  
• Added new item icons
  
• Office and Vertigo are available as main menu scenery
  
• Various updates for weapon finishes, including fixing overly strong wear on several Custom Paint Job finishes
  
• Reworked Phoenix Street Soldier balaclava texture to resolve visibility issues
  
• Enabled animated eyes on agent character models

[ WORKSHOP TOOLS ]

• Game clients running in workshop tools mode are not allowed to connect to VAC secure game servers
  
• Added an all-new help system featuring contextually relevant guides and information. Guides include gray scale value ranges for alpha channel masking, paint-by-number mask color assignments based on current finish type, and much more!
  
• Removed dynamic props from solid color inspect backgrounds

Hey everyone, sorry for the radio silence! I’ve been hard at work the past few months attempting to port Ex-Zodiac over to the latest version of the game engine I use. I’ve wanted to move to the latest version for a while now, but I was waiting for it to become stable before doing so. Upgrading was important for a number of reasons, but the main ones were: future-proofing console support, editor stability and new features that enhance or speed up my work flow. Lots of little improvements have been made all across the engine and the editor, and this stuff all adds up, especially when it comes to time saving.

Most of you (probably) know the game is being built in Godot, and it originally started all the way back in version 2.1. Not long after, version 3.0 became available, and I decided to port the game over to that. At that time the game only had one level, so porting it over took about a week as I had to rebuild everything from scratch as there was no automatic conversion tool available. Thankfully there is one this time around and so that's handled a lot of the work for me, but there are still plenty of things that need manually fixing. Things like broken materials, animations not playing correctly and events not triggering etc. The good news is that the porting process is almost complete. There are still some rough edges to smooth out, but the bulk of the work is done, and that means I can finally get back to working on new content.

I want to thank you all for your patience and support so far, I’m really grateful for that. I’m looking forward to getting back to being creative again soon!

- Ben Hickling / MNKY

---

• Headshot: Introduces a chance to instantly eliminate enemies with well-aimed shots.
  
• Dash Cooldown: Allows for customization of dash ability cooldown.
  
• Dash Range: Enhances the range of the dash ability.
  
• Invincibility after Hit: Grants temporary invincibility for a period after taking damage.

• Ten new augmentations have been introduced, offering unique gameplay enhancements. Refer to the in-game Glossary for detailed information including how to unlock them.

• A total of 33 new in-game achievements have been added, providing players with fresh challenges and goals to strive for.

• Miragora's Brutal Mode Adjustments: The difficulty of Miragora's Brutal mode has been significantly reduced to provide a more balanced gameplay experience. Enemies were becoming overwhelmingly strong at an unsustainable pace.
  
• Lyrastris Difficulty Adjustment: All game modes in Lyrastris have received a reduced difficulty level, offering a more accessible challenge.

• Glossary Expansion: The Collectibles menu has been renamed to "Glossary" and now includes comprehensive information about enemies, alongside items and augmentations.
  
• Settings Menu Integration: The options and controls menus have been consolidated into a single "Settings" menu to streamline the main menu interface.
  
• "End Run" Option: An "End Run" option becomes available after 5 minutes in a run. Using this option grants all achievement rewards, upgrade points, and other earned rewards instantly.

• Glossary Item Issue: Resolved an issue where some unlocked items appeared as locked in the glossary, providing accurate information to players.
  
• Boss Spawn Rate Adjustment: In the extreme late game, the spawn rate of bosses has been reduced to enhance game performance. However, bosses have become notably more formidable.

Hello, from now on the game will be available for free to everyone, your chance has come, if you didn't have the game yet, now you can try to finish this game without paying anything!
Good luck!

[ AI ]

• Added the first AI - Guardians of Asteroids.
  
• They periodically appear over unsafe asteroids and attack everyone they see... But after a while, they leave.
  
• After destroying the Guardian, you can find some rare materials.

[ SFX ]

• All sounds of weapon shots have been updated.
  
• Updated mining laser sounds.
  
• Added sounds for Asteroid Guardians.

[ VFX ]

• Updated mining laser effects.
  
• Added new effects for the appearance, disappearance and explosion of Asteroid Guardians.

[ UI ]

• Added a new menu with markers.
  
• Markers can be added, hidden/shown, renamed, and deleted.
  
• Added TIER mapping in research trees.

Welcome to the New Era. Will you fight for peace, or embrace the khaos?



It's In Our Blood. Discover a reborn Mortal Kombat Universe created by Fire God Liu Kang.
Mortal Kombat 1 ushers in a new era of the iconic franchise with a new fighting system, game
modes, and Fatalities!

We're excited to release the International Compendium for The International 2023. Because this is a new shape to previous years’ Compendiums, we wanted to walk you through what it is, how it works, and why we built it.

As we described a few months back, looking at Dota's history made it clear that Battle Passes had steadily grown to consume all the content in a given year, and were inhibiting our ability to ship creative things throughout the year. We wanted to fix this, and so made a deliberate choice several months ago to ship new things more often in a wider variety of forms. This year has been full of experiments: We released a brand new player behavior system, free items to celebrate the 10th Anniversary, a number of gameplay patches, a collection of community sets, and more. This Compendium is another example of something new.


Every Dota update has a variety of goals and part of the work of designing and building an update is choosing where to put the emphasis. An update can be focused on delivering cosmetic content or refining balance. An update can try to generate the largest prize pool possible. Instead of these goals, we chose to focus this update more narrowly: To elevate the players, the teams, and the artistry that is high-level Dota played at The International. We focused entirely on creating a set of activities to make TI more fun while games were going on, and another set of activities to make TI more fun when games weren't going on.

And so that's what this year's Compendium is: a collection of challenges that we've built around the pro players and the event itself. We've brought back and improved some old favorites like Fantasy and Predictions. We're also introducing some new activities, ranging from the light-hearted (Bingo) to the seriously formidable (The Road to the International Challenge).

Everything you'll accomplish through the Compendium earns you progress towards rewards. Like the Compendium challenges, all the rewards this year are built around the players and the event. There's an International 2023 HUD, permanent chatwheel lines, and a physical collector's Aegis, along with lots of new content for your Profile Showcase (see below), including team and player stickers.


In line with the goals we established earlier this year, we've been intentional about ensuring that every update we ship has something for all Dota players, whether that's new gameplay or new features. This update is no different: If, like many, you're a huge fan of watching the spectacle of the International but aren't familiar with the old legends of Arteezy on a cliff, or Emo's research into the deep lore and many varied uses of the question mark, that's alright, too — we've got stuff in this update for you as well.

This update also includes the Profile Showcase, free and available now to all players. Whether you're proud of your record, your in-game fashion sense, or that one time you won a game on Invoker, we've created a canvas where you can show off the parts of your Dota experience you value the most. We could describe how cool it is all day, but since a picture is worth a thousand words, we've put together a whole update page: go take a look at the pictures.


We're already working on future updates with different focuses and we know you're excited to learn more about the next big patch, and the next set of arcanas, and everything else we're working on — but that's for after the champions claim the Aegis. For now, Seattle welcomes a return of the finest players in the world, and we can't wait. We'll see you on the Road to the International.

https://kovaaks.com/kovaaks/playlists?subscribed=false now features Playlists! You can browse or search by name, author, and aim type. The playlist view shows the description, breakdown of scenarios by type, playlist time, and scenario list. You can click to play from the website or copy the sharecode. Additionally, you can also click on a playlist creator to check their profile and follow them 😀


We are happy to announce that major parts of the Sandbox are now localized into Japanese and Simplified Chinese. You can access them through Settings -> Misc. Many thanks to pleasewait and ObserverQwQ for helping with the translations! If you have any suggestions for fixes or improvements or are interested in translating the Sandbox, join our Discord and reach out! 😀






With the 3.3.0 patch, scenario creators can now record their own mouse and keyboard inputs in the scenario editor and make use of those recordings in the following ways:

• Have players follow a pre-recorded movement path from spawn (looping or not).
  
• Have bots (targets or teammates) follow a pre-recorded movement path from spawn (looping or not).
  
• Have bots mix in pre-recorded sequences of dodge patterns within their normal movements.
  
• And more!

Once in the scenario editor, pressing F1 will begin recording, and pressing F1 again will stop recording. After a playback file has been created, the Character Profile editor’s Spawn tab or the Dodge Profile’s Playback tab allows you to make use of the playbacks.

Playback Mode allows you to specify whether the recorded movement pattern should lock the character to the same exact x/y/z location that was used at the time of the recording or not.


Given it’s one of the most seen and replayed moments of the KovaaK’s experience, the challenge endscreen is something we seek to constantly improve. One particular piece of feedback that caught our eye was that the score graph could feel jarring at times, depending on scores achieved during a given time frame. To improve this, we have reworked the top and bottom of the graph so that they anchor to the closest leaderboard percentiles (25th, 50th, 75th, and 90th). This should improve the scaling of the graph and also comes with the bonus of being able to use it as a discrete leaderboard representation.
Finally, we moved the scenario title to the header and made it possible to customize the graph color (Settings -> UI); We will continue to enhance this screen but the resulting experience should feel significantly better for new, existing and returning users.



https://kovaaks.com/kovaaks/benchmark-creator
We are thrilled to announce the launch of our brand-new "Creator Tools." With these tools, you now have the power to craft your very own benchmarks and workouts, tailor-made to their needs and preferences.

• With this update, all scenarios added to a Benchmark or Workout will remain playable through the Sandbox.
  
• You don't need KovaaK's Plus to create and submit benchmarks/workouts.

We can't wait to see the awesome creations you come up with!




The topbar now shows a browser button and displays some player info, such as username, avatar, flag, etc.








Based on your feedback and requests, we have updated the functionality of the Session Statistics and Clock widgets:
Under Settings->UI, you can now configure the Session Statistics widget to show only the timer, only the statistics, or both.
The Clock widget now also shows a cumulative gameplay timer since the game was last opened.




We have added new sky options to test the idea of a “moving skybox”! For now these aren’t affected by the advanced sky settings, such as “Sun/Stars”, “Tint”, etc. but we will eventually make them compatible.



In response to your valuable feedback and requests, we've added two new shapes to the map creator:
Quarter Dome: A sleek, quarter-dome shape for seamless integration.
Concave Corner: A steeper version of our existing “Concave Ramp” shape, closer to half a circle/sphere.
We hope you find these additions useful and enhance your map design possibilities!

• New variable: "Restart Dodge Profile Timer on Respawn" - when this variable is utilized, the bot will reset its timer of current dodge profile on respawn.
  
• Dodge profile enhancements to “Initial Left/Right” and “Initial Forward/Back”. You now have the following options available: Left/Right; Initial Strafe: Left / Right / Random; Initial Strafe On: Initial Spawn / Every Spawn / Swap Dodge Profile; Forward/Back; Initial Strafe: Forward / Back / Random; Initial Strafe On: Initial Spawn / Every Spawn / Swap Dodge Profile.
  
• Dodge Profile Editor: Increase maximum value for Time variables in UI to 100s.

• You can now make the leaderboard, Freeplay Manager and Playlist windows larger by hiding the HUD element "Hotbar".
  
• Adjusted scenario cache download so it only writes to disk when the game is paused. This should reduce stutters caused by scenario updates.
  
• Online Playlists can now be marked as unlisted when creating them. An unlisted online playlist will still have a ShareCode, it just won’t be discoverable through the Playlist Browser. Although we recognize this is a niche addition, we’re hoping it empowers the coaching community.
  
• We’ve consolidated and updated tags for scenario creation. This is the first effort towards improving the experience of finding and discovering scenarios and their creators.
  
• Modified difficulty indicator to have different colors for different difficulties (red to green).
  
• The Leaderboard widget is slightly larger when in Challenge mode and not part of a Playlist.
  
• Added footstep and fall sound effects.
  
• By default, it’s only enabled on humanoid characters but you can enable it for all character types.
  
• Settings -> UI - when clicking 'Show Health Bars only when damaged', the option to show health bars will now automatically turn on if it wasn't already.
  
• Resized Font on Clock and FPS Widgets to be smaller.
  
• Updated KovaaK’s Benchmarks button to “KovaaK’s Plus”.
  
• Added tooltip for play toggle during playlists.
  
• Playlist window changes - removed button to change title/description, made title/description always editable while editing a scenario. This reduces the number of clicks and keeps the user-flow simple.
  
• Added 'Replay' button on Challenge End Screen for when we're in a playlist but not complete with it.
  
• Added character limit to Playlist titles.
  
• Optimized health bar.
  
• Map Creator search bar now shows hint text “Search” to make it more noticeable.
  
• Re-organized “Session Manager” UI so it’s easier to understand and renamed it “Freeplay Manager”.
  
• Added MenuClick and MenuHover sounds to the default list of sound effects.

• “Downloading Scenario Updates” now obeys the time interval set by the User Settings, instead of doing it on every game launch.
  
• Changed UI scaling rule in Project Settings to better support screens using aspect ratios other than 16:9.
  
• DPI Settings UI alignment.
  
• Now applying Set Keyboard Focus on Construct in hopes of helping Linux users.
  
• Player’s color highlight on the leaderboard is now assigned to the Primary Color in Settings -> UI.
  
• Fixed tooltip in Reaction Tab for LOS Reaction Type
  
• Fixed an issue with Strafe Swap Pause where bots would stay paused through death/respawn.
  
• Fixed Play Toggle being fully grayed out during a Playlist.
  
• Fixed issue where explosive weapons with flat knockback were always using the max value instead of randomizing between min and max.
  
• Fixed tooltip on Zoomed Scope option.
  
• Fixed a couple of crashes.
  
• Fixed lag on the Trainer.
  
• Better handling of high score posting when using Local Scenarios and/or Local Playlists.
  
• Fixed playlist keybind related softlock.
  
• Fixed playlist next / playlist prev having the wrong name.
  
• Some work on scenario caching.
  
• Long playlist names no longer flow on top of buttons in the Scenario Browser.
  
• Fixed first person hands being dithered.
  
• Fixed NaN dates appearing in graphs.
  
• Fixed issue with scenario editor validation and bot/aim profiles.
  
• Fixed “Move to get more points” message so that it doesn’t come up when the player has in fact moved.
  
• Changed Settings Cog widget color to match header text color.
  
• Fixed gibs not working.
  
• Only show popup windows when the game is paused.
  
• Added call to Unpause Session Timer after restarting a benchmark, which was also bugging the Scenario Stats sometimes.
  
• Fixed themes not loading in the trainer menu.
  
• Fixed respawn logic for characters that ignore collision with other characters - they will no longer hold back on spawning when other characters are overlapping their spawn spots.

We recently launched a website that features a new way to find and follow scenarios, playlists and their creators, as well as a place to create your own KovaaK’s profile, benchmarks, workouts and competitions!
Check it out at http://kovaaks.com


When using and testing Playback Profiles on the Scenario Editor, one often is required to “respawn” the character to see any changes made. One quick way to do this is to switch teams back and forth (1 to 2 and then back to 1, for example) on the “Freeplay Manager”. We will be looking into ways to improve this user-experience.


As always, we wouldn't be here without you, so please send us your feedback and ideas - find us @KovaaKs and on our Discord. Thanks for your support and more great stuff coming soon!

Hi everyone,

Someone reported a black screen issue, and this update should fix the problem. It was a rare occurrence after fishing, so not many should be affected by this particular bug.

Please let me know if other big or small bugs occur, and I will address them promptly.

- Jardar