Left-handed Counter-Strike 2 players, time to raise that left hand in what could be interpreted as a celebration. In the game’s latest update, Valve have added the ability to swap from the default right-handed viewmodel to a left-handed one. There’s also an update to the buy menu, making it easier to track your bank account and grab weapons your mates have dropped. Alongside further UI improvements for grenade line-ups, and a tweak to the Active Duty map pool.
As detailed in the Steam announcement, if you head into CS2’s in-game settings, you can now set your “preferred handedness” to a left-handed viewmodel. What’s more, you can set a keybinding so that you can switch between hands mid-round like an ambidextrous assassin. It’s a bit odd, though, that CS2 launched without the option to switch hands through the command console, where Counter Strike: Global Offensive let you do so from the get-go. Seven months is a long time to wait for such an option, but hey, at least it’s here now I guess?
As for the buy menu, it’s been updated with a little feature that’ll pop up in the top-right corner. It now calculates the minimum amount of money you’re guaranteed to have next round, meaning you can manage your economy without so much of the mental arithmetic. At the bottom right of the buy menu, there’s also a “Dropped Weapons” panel, that lets you see what weapons teammates have dropped in the buy zone and pick them up with a click. I think this comes in particularly handy when you’re playing with muted teammates who just drop things willy nilly, otherwise I find most folks call out what they’re dropping anyway.
For the more serious-minded, HUD/UI changes mean you set line-up reticles to appear once you’ve pulled the pin on grenades. Before you say, “That doesn’t sound helpful for explosive grenades”, you can customise the delay for each grenade type. This is, categorically, an update for players who’ve memorised smoke grenade line-ups on all the maps and I would’ve loved this to be a thing back when I took CS:GO more seriously than anything back at uni.
Elsewhere, the Active Duty map pool for Premier and competitions has removed Overpass and brought back Dust 2. Admittedly, I’ve not played CS2 in a long time, but I never liked Overpass, so this sounds great to me.
For all the tweaks, I’d recommend having a gander at the official patch notes.