When professional esports players talk, people listen. And when it’s former pros like TenZ who stream to huge audiences, there’s even more reason to take heed, especially when it comes to FPS games.
In a Sept. 30 clip from his stream, the former VALORANT and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive pro-turned-full time content creator had a lot to say when a donator asked him about Valve’s plans for CS2 moving forward now that the company’s newest game, Deadlock, is out in the wild. And he did not mince words.
“It was just mainly porting it to the Source 2 engine,” TenZ said about Valve’s FPS changing over from CS:GO last year. “But the other reason is so that they can just do it and say that they’ve done some stuff and then work fully on Deadlock and release two full patches filled with content. New characters, new jungle camps, new items and everything, new graphics, every two weeks. But, happy birthday Counter-Strike, you didn’t get anything.”
CS2 originally came out last year on Sept. 27, and the lack of anything substantial for the game’s first birthday while Deadlock has had several updates since becoming widely available is certainly a reason to raise one’s eyebrows.
“Counter-Strike to Valve was like its fuckin’ adopted child,” TenZ continued. “And [Team Fortress 2] is like the cousin, I guess, or something, I don’t know. TF2 also. I think Valve is giving the TF2 treatment to CS right now.”
TenZ also fired shots at Valve president and co-founder Gabe Newell, who he the creator says he’s never seen at a Counter-Strike event or tournament, despite recalling seeing him appear at Dota 2‘s premier competition, The International, over and over again.
“He fucking hates Counter-Strike,” TenZ went on. “This game makes him a stupid amount of money, but he just goes, ‘eh.’” The silver lining in all this? At least it’s good new for Deadlock, Valve’s new shooter-MOBA hybrid that’s been hyper-popular despite still being very early in its development cycle. TenZ saw that as a positive for Deadlock when a chatter noted Newell was probably more of “a MOBA guy,” and stated his belief that the new game will continue to get big, frequent content updates while CS2 just sits on the sidelines.
