You can easily make the argument that Counter-Strike 2 is not an update to Counter-Strike Global Offensive and is actually an entirely new game. With a new engine, updated maps, major changes to smoke grenades and finally a decent in-game ranked system it has changed almost every aspect of CS:GO. But had this launched as a new game rather than replacing the decade-old version there’s a good chance the player base would be split more evenly than you might imagine across the two.
Most of the new additions in Counter-Strike 2 have been received well. The biggest change you’ll notice is the new smoke grenade physics, which now bloom to fill a space and can be impacted by bullets and other grenades. Launch a HE frag grenade into a smoke and it will blast a hole in it, giving you vision.
While firing bullets through a smoke to get vision isn’t all that useful, using a HE to create a gap in a smoke has become a default strategy that everyone is using. It’s also changed the flow of a round, as smokes are no longer a safe visual barrier, causing some strategies and common positions to become almost useless. This simple change has freshened up the average round, and alone has made things different enough that it feels like a new game.