What happens to Valorant now that Counter-Strike 2 (CS2) is out? Will the pros be making a return?

Counter-Strike 2 (CS2) has seen a very successful launch, but will it hamper Valorant’s reign? There are a lot of aspects to this question, and unfortunately, there’s no concrete answer to it as well. While both are tactical shooters, they’re inherently different, primarily because of how the two developers have breached the subject.

Back when Valorant was released, a huge number of players, including professionals, made a switch from CS:GO. Valve’s tactical shooter was around eight years old at this point, and there was no innovation whatsoever.

On the other hand, Riot’s tactical shooter mixed abilities with gunplay, giving the game a unique feel. But what happens now?

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Will CS2 overshadow Valorant?

CS2, while being a part of the same franchise, is a huge upgrade from CS:GO. From reactive smoke to reworked maps, there’s a lot that has been changed. Not just that, the overall look and feel of the game has undergone a massive overhaul as well. Furthermore, the game saw a stark increase in player count within moments of launch.

Both these titles are absolutely free to play, and the two companies make money from their tactical shooters through cosmetic sales. In Valorant, there’s no in-game trading market. All you need to do is purchase Valorant Points and use them to purchase skins.

It’s slightly different for CS2. You cannot directly purchase skins; instead, you will have to open cases that have a chance of rewarding you with the skin you want. There’s also a trading market that functions separately outside the game.

Before the Valorant Champions 2023, Riot made around $20 million from their skin sales, which is a pretty hefty sum. CS2, on the other hand, made more than $40 million from case openings within the first 40 minutes. This goes on to show that there’s still a lot of interest in Valve’s tactical shooter.

Valorant may still have a flashy appeal with all the skins and abilities, but Valve’s tactical shooter might just put a huge dent in its player base. Many pros might make their way back to Counter-Strike 2 as well. This is because of the current tournament structure that Riot Games follows.

If a player is part of a roster that’s been selected or has made its way to the regional VCT splits, they’ll be able to play at the top tournaments. However, if the team does not make it to the splits, then these pros will see very little action for over a year.

One of the best examples of this incident would be Jaccob "yay" Whiteaker. He had a strong run with OpTic Gaming back in 2022. However, after the org failed to secure a partnership in the VCT 2023 splits, the team disbanded, and yay was picked up by Cloud9. After Cloud9 had a disastrous run at VCT LOCK//IN, yay and the organization parted ways.

He went on to play for some smaller teams over the course of the year but never really made it to the big stages. If the Valorant tournament structure continues to see such a format, a lot of pros will consider shifting to CS2 to avoid long periods of little to no competitive play.

Not just yay, other former CS:GO pros have reacted positively to CS2’s launch. Shroud, in a stream, mentioned that it would blow Valorant over. Another popular pro-turned-content creator, tarik, said that he’ll be investing more time into CS2 because it’s more fun than Valorant.

Overall, a lot of pros will either be migrating or coming out of retirement for a fresh run. Whether they choose to play at a professional level is a different point of discussion altogether, but Valve’s tactical shooter is bringing a lot of popular names out of retirement.

That said, it’s just been two days since CS2 was released, so it’s too early to talk about the impact it will have on Valorant’s player base. Just like the mass migration from CS:GO to Valorant happened when Riot released its tactical shooter, a similar phenomenon is completely expected in CS2’s case as well.

Whether Valve’s tactical shooter can retain the returning players is worth seeing.