The Real MVP Update of 25.06.2024 CS2

Just a month after the previous game renewal, Valve rolled out another substantial update on June 25, 2024. The addition of numerous community-developed maps in all game modes is a major highlight. Moreover, the video settings have seen substantial adjustments and improvements, simplifying the navigation. The Competitive mode has received a popularity injection, while some other in-game elements have been changed and fixed. If you expected to see anti-cheat or some try to improve the battle against unfair gaming, come down and wait, at least for another update.

The List of Changes & Updates

In fact, this update could receive its unique name, like “visual waterfall,” as most of the additions are related to new maps and changes in the Video setting menus. Also, Valve probably saw the dropping popularity of the Premier mode, but instead of fighting against cheaters, they decided to renew interest in other modes, especially the Competitive one.

A Bunch of New Maps

The CS community finally saw a widening of the map pool in all modes except Premier, where only official maps are present. Thus, Thera and Mills were added to the Competitive list (we will discuss them in more detail below), while the Wingman lowers got Memento and Assembly. The latter ones traditionally have only one bomb plant and are aimed at paired cooperation to become winners.

The older players surely remember a Pool Day map in CS 1.6, which was an ideal place for an unstoppable skirmish with no tactics and strategies needed. Of course, the perfect mode in Counter-Strike 2 for such an idea is the Arms Race, and the renewed Pool Day will indeed find its enjoyers who want to run and shoot without headphones.

Popularization of Competitive Mode

Two other maps were added to the Competitive mode, but the latter deserves quite a separate attention. Therefore, the initial idea of gaining separate ranks for every map looked pretty fresh and was aimed at bringing equal opponents on every battlefield. Thus, most players prefer some maps over others and so perform better on them, while facing same-rank opponents in other locations could lead to severe problems (say “hello” to Mirage or Dust 2 lovers on Vertigo or Overpass).

However, players needed ten wins on a single map in the Competitive mode to receive an initial rank and then polish it a few dozen times to see a real skill group. In reality, it meant playing a single map around 50 times to receive a CS2 Global Elite on it, while multiplying this number by the number of maps could cost hundreds of hours. The discussed update simplifies this process and cuts the initial ranking point to two wins only, which is much more realistic.

Even with the addition of the Thera and Mills maps, the path won’t become long and unbearable, especially since everyone is new to them. Regarding the style of these locations, they are quite interesting yet typical for Counter-Strike: two bombsites with multiple routes and battle areas.

Video Setting Adjustments

This part of the update discussed is the most massive and belongs to Valve and its developers’ team. The list of new features and improvements is quite long but should simplify setting video characteristics, especially for newbies. However, even experienced gamers received a smoother panel for video adjustments, which should work better with so many elements changed and reviewed by the developers’ team.

Also, plenty of updates were added for players who use NVIDIA graphic cards, with technologies like G-Sync, V-Sync, and Reflex grouped in the responsive menu. Moreover, Valve recommends using them all for a better gaming experience, which means they’ve made improvements and adjusted the game on the level of hardware processing (let’s hope they dug really deep in this direction).

Minor Updates and Changes

Fixing the C4 stuck spots on Ancient, Anubis, Nuke, and Vertigo may seem like a minor change, but still, it’s great that Valve is polishing even some tiny issues. A similar level of importance belongs to the new MVP animation and rules, which look more stylish, at least. Most of the players probably don’t care about the MVP status at the end of the round, but if you bought a special sound, you’ll surely be happy to hear it more often and with fair conditions applied.