5 things Counter-Strike 2 could have done better in 2025

What’s even worse is that Valve disabled the option to have 128-tick in third-party servers like FaceIt. Valve has some of the best programmers in the world, and they can absolutely write thesis-length papers to prove that the players are wrong. 

The game used to run like a dream, and now it doesn’t. Antagonising the playerbase won’t help them accept subtick over 128-tick rate servers.

Counter-Strike 2 has been overrun with cheaters for such a long time that it’s already become synonymous with the game. The game being infested with cheaters doesn’t surprise anyone at this point. It’s so rampant that cheaters are using their own software to catch other cheaters in the lobby.

Valve’s anti-cheat efforts hinge on VAC and VAC Live, a real-time cheat detection system powered by AI. In September 2025, it had a major update that finally worked, wiping out an untold number of cheats and bots overnight. It was glorious for a time, but it didn’t take too long for the cheaters to adapt.

These cheaters are so blatant that CS2’s rank mode, Premier, is treated as the casual mode because the actual Casual playlist is infested with cheaters and bots who will spam chat with links to dubious sites. Just to make it extra clear, Premier is also filled with cheaters the higher you go, leading to players gravitating to third-party servers for fair games.

Games like VALORANT and Battlefield 6 have aggressive anti-cheats that work, but maybe Valve doesn’t want to dip into the controversial Kernel-level system just yet. Much has been said about CS2’s cheating problem, yet I think it’s high time for Valve to say something about it as well.

Even when the subtick works, CS2 has struggled to feel as good as CS:GO due to technical performance issues. There’s a significant player base of the game that plays on budget PCs, and these players were left behind in the transition. Even players and pros with the top rigs are reporting inexplicable FPS drops, stutters, input lag, and just a feeling that the game isn’t running as well as it used to.

Valve’s Source 2 engine is undeniably more demanding than the old engine, but the optimisation still feels lacking compared to other competitive FPS titles. These spikes usually appear when you need the game to be the most stable, like during firefights or utility spam. 

CS2’s graphical overhaul brings the game up to date, but it also comes at the cost of tanking FPS in unoptimised maps. It’s gotten so predictable that players will intentionally dodge unoptimised maps, which contributes to why players don’t queue up for Train, Inferno, and Anubis.

Valve did roll out patches for specific issues and even overhauled the weapon animations and sounds. This is a step in the right direction, but Valve should double down on their efforts to make CS2 truly next-gen without leaving their core players behind.

Way before Counter-Strike became the hyper-competitive 5v5 we know, it was a sandbox for casual communities. Before Valve matchmaking forced you into Dust 2, CS was a wild west of servers where you could also jump into Dust 2 (some things never change), but this time with a large amount of players turning each other into zombies.

Global Offensive continued this with casual pub servers, surf maps, gun games, and even a whole battle-royale mode called Danger Zone. When the game transitioned into the sequel, many of these were lost and slowly returned in pieces, with some of them never returning. The official server browser of CS2 feels lifeless compared to CS:GO’s heyday.

Worse, the casual matchmaking servers that do exist have become overrun by bots that are just there to farm for weekly drops. Even if you try to initiate a vote kick, other bots in the server would immediately vote to keep them, and they might even vote to kick you out instead.

Valve has been making efforts to address the casual community, like officially adding the popular Retakes mode and supporting map makers with more tools. Even so, the problem is that finding a proper game for these modes still takes too much time and effort for something that’s supposed to be casual.

Counter-Strike’s skin economy is a double-edged sword. It’s provided us with years of content, hype, and value, but it makes an absurd amount of money that takes away from the rest of the game. 

Valve has treated adding skins and weapon caches as content updates. Two of the biggest updates of 2025 were also related to cosmetics: the controversial Genesis Uplink Terminal, where Valve tries to FOMO you into purchasing skins directly from them, and the Trade Up Contract update that tanked skin prices. Although in hindsight, this was a positive change for the game, so regular players could roll for knives way out of their budget.

Adding frequent cosmetic collections is the final slap on the face for all the issues mentioned above. What players want (after the core issues are fixed, of course) are real content updates: a new Valve map after Ancient, the long-awaited return of the popular Cache, experimental playlists, or in-game events like Operations to keep the game exciting.

Dear Valve, the Counter-Strike community loves this game more than words can convey, yet it seems like there’s a mismatch between the company’s priorities and what the community wants. Counter-Strike, as a game, is nearly perfect, and these complaints aren’t directed at it. It’s everything around CS2 that feels frustrating. 

In the end, we all want the same thing: a Counter-Strike 2 that lives up to its name and potential. A game where competition is fair and thrilling, where performance is smooth, where competition and casual fun have a place, and where the game isn’t dictated by million-dollar pixels.