Valve really hate ESL Pro League, don’t they? (One of us, one of us, one of us)

It was in Season 17 that the first report broke of Counter-Strike 2’s existence, and everyone swiftly forgot about the tournament altogether.

Season 18 is on right now — so, naturally, Valve fully released CS2 halfway through playoffs this time around.

But, honestly, maybe we should pay attention; there have been some ridiculous results already.

On day one Eternal Fire dispatched of Astralis, 9z knocked out VP, and Monte beat fnatic. DAY ONE!

Day two came with MOUZ 2-0ing FaZe, and on day three we had the biggest shock of all: Monte 2-0 Vitality.

They even broke the world number one’s 17-game Nuke streak (thanks HLTV) and from 14-14 on T side too. Who would have thought that Monte, after losing BOROS, were the underdog who could survive the post-Paris blues?

Eternal Fire’s Cinderella run, meanwhile, was finally brought to an end by NAVI — who are still yet to drop a map this season.

Now, CS2 is a factor behind these upsets. Some teams (including both Vitality and Monte) have been scrimming on CS2 already. Twistzz has spoken about how hard it is to motivate yourself for CS:GO when CS2 is around the corner.

But take nothing away from the underdogs. There’s a hint of Rio and Paris with all these surprises, and you know what? It’s a fitting send-off to Global Offensive.

We’re in a transition period, one that should bring us new teams, new talent, and flip the tier-one scene on its head.

When even Pro League is whetting our appetite, you know we’re in for a treat. Roll on the new era!

Rest in peace to the greatest game ever made.

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is no more. This isn’t a dramatic overreaction, it actually can’t be booted up anymore.

It goes without saying that all of us at tl;dr wouldn’t be the people we are without CSGO, and tl;dr wouldn’t exist without it either. It has brought us joy, friends, adventures, a raison d'être, sweat, tears, pain, excitement, hope, freedom, and at times, an escape from reality.

Most of us are fortunate enough that our escape from reality has become our reality, and covering this game has become less of a hobby, and more of a lifestyle.

CSGO wasn’t just a game for us.

Of course, the hole in our lives has been filled with Counter-Strike 2, and all the hope that a new engine, a new game, a fresh start brings. We’re not going anywhere, but for the next few months things are feeling a little bit uncertain.

CSGO was the reason some of us broke out of a funk, a portal to a world that was a little bit less dark. CSGO was a way for us to channel anger, disappointment, disillusionment into something real. CSGO was a way for us to connect with friends who we might’ve lost contact with as distance grew.

CSGO was a game that eleven years in, we still hadn’t fully solved. It was a creative outlet at times, and at others a mindless shooter. CSGO was the only thing some of us watched, and the only thing that some of us played.

There are people out there who will think that’s sad.

They’re the ones who missed out - and now, they’ll never experience the joy, despair and everything in-between that CSGO brought us.

Before the ink can even dry on CSGO’s obituary, we are absorbed into the whirlwind of Counter-Strike 2.

The full release came Wednesday night, and with it a torrent of mixed emotions. A wave of realisation that one era was over and another was beginning, mixed with hope and relief that the wait was finally over. 

With all that, the release was… mildly anticlimactic. Admittedly, anything would be anticlimactic compared to what this game means to its community.

There wasn’t much new in the release that wasn’t already in the beta - well, you could open cases again, which clearly excited certain quarters of the community. 

The new smokes, the glitzy new in-game look, Premier leaderboard, Overpass and Inferno remake, new gun sounds and so much more that we saw through the beta are all live for everyone now.

There was a pretty hefty patch, though.

The player collision fixes were much-needed, and adjustments to sound, jiggle-peeking, smoke interactions and chickens jumping off Vertigo (yes, really) all sounded fantastic.

The game isn’t perfect yet, which is to be expected. Those of you without computers more akin to Optimus Prime than a household PC will probably be fine, but for the rest of us plebbians it’s not the smoothest FPS wise. (Here are some NVIDIA and AMD optimisation tips)

It’s closer to CSGO than any non-Counter-Strike game, obviously, but it’s just far enough that it’s still a little uncomfortable.

Pros have their own critiques - holding angles is too tough, ‘it feels like 16 tick’ and so on, but we're sure these issues will be ironed out in time.

These issues do little to detract from the full product, which we hope (there’s that word again) will be able to fill the shoes of the greatest game ever made.

Welcome, dear reader, to the revolution.

We remember it like it was yesterday… because as of writing it was.

CS2 was about to come out, we had been teased for days, if not months. Suddenly, it happened and the connection to CS:GO servers was lost.

Reddit and Twitter caught fire, but the biggest shock probably hit Malta where Complexity and Monte were mid-series.

As you can imagine, the update caused a bit of an interruption. The game, in theory, could continue, but there were no inventories, so players were stuck on P2Ks and M4A4s.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, there were also NO SKINS.

So, after solving any issues that did arise, and a not-so-short break, they resumed the game. Again, WITHOUT SKINS. We have no idea how they managed that. 

Skins or not, EPL Playoffs continues today in CS:GO which is technically still accessible through the "betas" tab on Steam. And EPL also won't be the last event for CS:GO.

The BLAST Fall Showdown, that begins barely a week from now, continues with CS:GO whereas the BLAST Fall Final in Copenhagen late November will be played in CS2. It makes sense. Team's have had little time to prepare and we're sure there's lots to figure out on the live production side too. We just can't wait for some CS2 action!

But for now, we’ll have to be patient and wait. Although not for long. IEM Sydney begins on October 16 and will be the first event to play CS2 from start to finish.

😕 Unlucky

• Slaxz got so close, yet so far. That one will haunt him for at least the next month.
• LUCAS1 is standing in while Imperial looks for Jota’s replacement. That’s just the way the empire crumbles, Jota…
• Maybe Imperial should give an old legend a try before deciding. TACO announced that he’s back after a 7-month-long rest and recovery.
• kRYSTAL is still waiting on $35.000 from his former team Cowana. That’s a very big bag of money.

❗ Missed opportunity

• FRAGADELPHIA makes its return, but this time it’s in Chicago. Should’ve called it Chifrago.
• What has Valve missed out on so far? HLTV gave us the complete rundown of missing features on the latest installment of our favourite game.

👋😢 Bye…

• With this screenshot from all the way back to the beginning of another beta in 2012, we commemorate our good friend Global Offensive. Thank you for your 11 years of service.
• GamerLegion are down one gamer as they’ve cut neaLan just two months after he joined.