Counter-Strike 2’s latest patch makes a bunch of changes to the competitive shooter, and one in particular has been on player wishlists for a long time. As Valve puts it: “Lefties rejoice!” Players can now set a default preference for which side their character holds their weapon, and switch between sides on-the-fly during rounds (by pressing H), all the better to peep corners with.
The buy menu’s also got a few new tricks. The top right of the menu now displays the minimum amount of money you’ll have in the next round, and at the bottom features a new “dropped weapons” panel. This is a brilliant addition, because part of the economy game in Counter-Strike is passing weapons around the team and sometimes buying for your teammates: this panel doesn’t just show weapons that’ve been dropped in the buy area, but allows you to pick them up directly.
On top of that there are HUD/UI changes: a customisable line-up reticle for grenades, and a “Radar Map Alternate Zoom” setting that comes with a key toggle to let you switch between zoom levels during the round.
Then the big news: Dust 2 is back, baby! I’m kidding of course, it never went away, but now it’s been rotated back into the Active Duty map pool for both Premier and competitive, with Overpass shuffled out to make way. Valve says there are some map changes to boot, particularly on Inferno, but I haven’t had the chance to check those out yet.
Finally, there are some tweaks to the kill rewards for certain guns, a nerf to the movement speed with the one-shot Zeus, and the glorious return of Overwatch. No, not the Blizzard game, but Valve’s enormously fun reporting system that lets players who opt-in view edited clips of players who’ve been reported for cheating, griefing, and bad behaviour generally. I love Overwatch, and sometimes spend just as long playing judge as I do counter-terrorist: happy days are here again.
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