Is the long-awaited Source 2 release just around the bend?

For a few centuries now, fans of Counter-Strike have been longing for their beloved FPS to receive an engine update to Source 2. After all, other Valve titles have received the treatment, some of which having been updated almost a decade back like Dota 2.

This week, rumors of the mythical Source 2 release of Counter-Strike flared up when the official Counter-Strike Twitter account updated their Twitter banner. Yes, an update to a Twitter banner once again caused fans to go wild with speculation. Is this it? Is this the time where Counter-Strike gets Source 2? What does it all mean?!

The new banner is rather interesting though. For instance, the iconography of a man holding a rifle was submitted as a trademark by Valve back in 2021. More recently, some progress on this trademark filing has been made at the US Patent and Trademark Office.

The new banner also, at least before being changed again, included the name "Counter-Strike." There was no "Global Offensive" in the name, and the period at the end sure seemed like it was something different. Is Valve planning to release a new version of Counter-Strike that is simply named "Counter-Strike" without any additional wordage? Would this be the fabled Source 2 release?

Maybe. I mean, it was just a banner change on Twitter. Valve does a lot of weird stuff all the time, so people were probably just looking too much into it because they're just that eager for new information.

That is what I would be saying if something else didn't happen this week that seems to indicate big changes are just around the bend for Counter-Strike. This latest comes courtesy of Nvidia and the recently released 531.18 driver update (released Feb. 28, 2023).

In this new driver update, game profiles were added for "Counter-strike 2 (cs2.exe)" and "Counter-strike 2 (csgos2.exe)." I just updated my own drivers and can confirm that both of these entries now exist within the Nvidia control panel.


What does this all mean? Well, it means nothing yet until Valve announces something. This could be a Source 2 update for the existing Counter-Strike: Global Offensive without any other changes. This could be a completely new Counter-Strike release. Is it both? Is it Half-Life 3? Maybe this is Valve teasing a card battling game based off of their Counter-Strike franchise.

At this point, your guess is as good as mine. I would say to maybe keep your expectations in check but I know the Counter-Strike community, so go ahead... get hyped.