Nvidia driver hints possible Counter-strike 2 title with new game profile

A recent Twitter post from @gabefollower hinted at the potential release of Counter-Strike 2, a sequel to one of Valve’s biggest creations, CS:GO. The community has theorized about the release of Valve’s famous first-person shooter (FPS) title for quite a while.

The images attached to the tweet showcased Counter-Strike: Global Offensive’s executable file accompanied by the name “csgos2.exe, cs2.exe” in the Nvidia driver’s game profiles. Players have been requesting a sequel for a long time as Valve’s evergreen title crossed its 10-year anniversary.

The presence of a new executable file showing up as Counter-strike 2 has thrown the entire community into a frenzy. Here are all the details and speculations around the possible release of CS:GO's sequel.

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Nvidia’s updated driver game profile shows “Counter-strike 2” executable

The latest Nvidia driver update reportedly has a new game profile with the name “Counter-strike 2”. However, it cannot be found directly on the system as the Nvidia drivers only show the profiles of the applications installed.

The new game profile apparently entered the scripts with Nvidia’s driver update in the month of February 2023.

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is going strong and hosts some of the biggest tournaments with several professional teams. The introduction of a sequel could pull back a huge percentage of players from other competitive shooter titles.

Nvidia game profiles

Nvidia graphics card users can check out the new Counter-strike 2 game profile from the Nvidia control panel. Fans and enthusiasts can follow the steps listed below to quickly view this new profile.

Right-click on your desktop and click on “Nvidia control panel”
The Nvidia control panel will pop up. Head over to “Manage 3D settings”
Untick the “Show only programs found on this computer” setting
Click on the drop-down menu above the unticked option and scroll down on the alphabetically sorted list
A set of new game profiles with “Counter-strike 2” will be available
The list will show two executable files named “csgos2.exe” and “cs2.exe”

Apart from the two obvious Counter-strike 2 game profiles, the list will also contain “counterstrikeonline2.exe” and “cs02launcher.exe”. They are present directly above the current Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (csgo.exe) executable file, which is live on Steam.

The presence of such profiles under separate profile hint at the possible release of CS:GO’s sequel.

Counter-strike 2

There have been several rumors in the Reddit community that have outlined the existence of Counter-strike 2 in the past. All the discussions have highlighted the fact that Valve might try to release CS:GO’s sequel in a new engine - likely to be Source 2.

However, the Source 2 engine is already quite old and already hosts famous titles like DOTA2 and Half-Life: Alyx. This might suggest that Valve will build CS:GO's sequel on a newer version of the same engine to provide improved gameplay and graphics.

Various speculations can be drawn from Nvidia’s latest game profiles. Valve might take a page from Blizzard Entertainment and introduce a sequel to the current Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, similar to Overwatch 2. This has quite a few complications as the original CS:GO is built on the Source engine and developers might face limitations.

CS:GO remains a highly competitive esports title and boasts a massive community. The player base has longed for an improved sequel of the game for a long time, which gives rise to a different assumption. Valve might have chosen patience over the popular choice to introduce Counter-strike 2 to the masses.

The influx of FPS players has increased greatly in the last few years due to the debut of different hero-shooter titles like Valorant and Overwatch 2.

The free-to-play nature of these games has brought several talented players from the younger generations onto the stage. This might just be the perfect time to announce CS:GO's sequel and expand the competitive platform for all new FPS talents.

Valve has not officially addressed this discovery at the time of writing this article. It is important to remember that these are merely assumptions from a single dataset found in Nvidia driver’s game profiles. Stay tuned to Sportskeeda for the latest updates.

About the author

Krishanu Ranjan Sarma covers Call of Duty, Apex Legends, and Valorant content for the Esports & Gaming division at Sportskeeda, helping readers stay on top of the latest metas, strategies, and updates.

Krishanu was drawn to online video games when introduced to Dota 2 and the Counter-Strike titles as a teenager. He has since moved on to multiplayer shooters like Valorant, CS2, Call of Duty, and Apex Legends. Among these, he favors the fast-paced battle royale gameplay of Apex Legends; if given a chance, Krishanu would love to drop into the arena and learn the lore first-hand.

Krishanu follows official social media announcements, press releases, and live developer streams for news and updates. However, when it comes to in-depth guides, he draws on his gameplay knowledge to provide tried-and-tested tips and strategies.

Krishanu's content has raked in over 3 million reads in less than two years. He has interviewed many professional esports players, including Valorant stars Mimi, Juliano, Daiki, meL, and Roxi, as well as HLTV award winner and Counter-Strike 2 player Zywoo. He is an avid follower of Valorant esports tournaments, with Paper Rex (PRX) being his favorite.

In his downtime, Krishanu likes capturing moments on film and editing videos. He keenly observes different shots and production-grade lighting techniques when watching movies and TV shows. He also likes listening to music and discovering new genres.

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Edited by Sohan Dasgupta