Since the announcement in March, Counter Strike 2 (CS2) is most definitely one of the most anticipated competitive shooter games. While many have got access to the limited beta, a good chunk is still waiting for the official release.

The game can be seen as a revamp of CS:GO that includes several changes, both visual and mechanical, while keeping the core concept as the same. Among the changes that have been announced recently, Valve has updated the ranking system in CS2.

The company has introduced an update to its Premier mode that features the active duty map banning system. Premier was introduced back in December 2020 with Operation Broken Fang and was made available to all players after an update in March 2021.

Now in CS2, Premier matches will provide players with rankings on seasonal leaderboard at both regional and global levels to compete with friends and others. It is a great addition as the current ranking system does not do justice to everyone.

Another major announcement includes changes to the ranking system itself. CS2 will now feature a map-based ranking system for every map. This means that a player can be Global Elite on one map, while being at a different rank on others.

This is done in order to give everyone a chance to learn a new map without being thrown into a professional lobby and get yelled for holding the wrong angle. Map-based ranking might also allow quicker matchmaking as higher ranks will have to wait for a shorter period of time to find others with similar ranks on different maps.

CS2 Release Date

Valve, in their latest update, has still claimed “summer 2023” as the official release for CS2 with no specific release date mentioned. However, since autumn starts September 23 this year, the release is expected this month itself.

Another thing to note is that September 12, 2023, is the 20th anniversary of Valve’s digital distribution platform, so speculation is rife for that to be the release date.