Bloated-Strike 2

I returned to playing Counter-Strike: Source after picking up Counter-Strike 2 for the first time since I last stopped playing Counter-Strike: Global Offensive years ago. At first I didn't mind the clearly excessive file size (60 GB at the time of writing), nor did I mind the clearly horrible, unoptimized performance. What really bothered me was the clear lack of content in the new game. This is a reoccuring theme with modern software in general. where you'll find yourself getting less functionality or content for more bloat.

The game only had a couple dozen maps, which is a very small number for a Counter-Strike title. After a couple of weeks of playing while attempting to install other modern games which also suffered from the same file size issue I couldn't find enough space on my 512 GB SSD (yes, some would say that is small for modern usage). While the new Hammer Editor was nice to play with and both the remakes of original maps on the Source 2 engine and other community-created Workshop maps were pleasant to look at, I didn't care much for skins and other digital microtransaction items, so one day I installed Counter-Strike: Source and played that instead.

Some of my oldest memories of the game returned, and while playing I realized that not much has changed since CS:S Counter- Strike is generally a very conservative game, aside from some quality-of-life improvements added in CS:GO and CS2 (such as standardized competitive match rules). Those changes are mostly aimed at the pro e-sports scene; as a mostly casual player, they mattered less to me personally. What I do miss are the new weapons that CS:GO and CS2 introduced.

The only major problem is the small player base: since almost everyone migrated to CS2 at release, most operating CS:S servers are effectively ghost towns.