Counter-Strike 2: Beginner Tips (2024)

Counter-Strike 2 features a vast skill gap, which is good, but it can be challenging for new players to "hang" with the veterans without feeling completely lost during every round. If you're new to tactical shooters or even PC gaming, this effect will multiply tenfold.

While Counter-Strike 2 is fundamentally a tactical shooter where tactics, utility line-ups, and rotations shine over mechanics at the highest level, when you're really new to the game, focusing on raw mechanics for a few months will lead to the fastest improvement in your play. If you're a total newbie, these are the fundamental concepts you should focus on.

How To Center Your Crosshair

Mechanically speaking, Counter-Strike 2 is a game about thinking and centering your crosshair. When playing your first casual matches, your primary focus should be perfecting your crosshair placementat neck level while walking around trying to find enemies.

At this level of play, correctly centering your crosshair and tapping every gun as a semi-auto will get you more kills than you can imagine. During your first CS2 game sessions, don't fear any corner and peek at everyone; you'll get killed a lot initially, but you'll get an authentic feel of how good centering can change the outcome of most gunfights.

There are two major mistakes when it comes to centering; the first and most common one is centering too low. Most players will keep their crosshairs at the hip level when checking corners. This will get you killed too many times. Get comfortable checking corners at enemies' neck level to remedy this issue.

The other major mistake is centering too close to the wall or corner you're checking. Many players place their crosshairs right on the edge of each corner, leaving them vulnerable to enemies who like to swing wide before shooting.

If an enemy goes past your crosshair during a peek, the readjustment will take time, and good players will use it to kill you. Instead of centering right on each edge, place the crosshair a bit away from the corner, where enemies will most likely stop to shoot if they peek.

How To Control Recoil Properly

To better understand recoil patterns, point your gun at a wall and start shooting; first, check the recoil without moving your mouse. You'll notice that there's always a little random horizontal deviation for every shot and a predictable vertical or diagonal path.

You'll want to learn that vector-like path and practice moving your mouse in the opposite direction to counter it. If you do this perfectly, the first ten to 12 bullets should go straight. The first time won't look good, but you'll improve overtime.

However, you won't need to hit ten bullets on any target in this game. Practice two-round, three-round, and five-round bursts while waiting for warm-up timers during your casual matches; you'll see great results during actual rounds just by getting those repetitions in.

Additionally, try to solve every gunfight by using your practiced bursts for some rounds. This will teach you the maximum viable range for every burst type: five-rounders are for close targets, three-rounders are for medium-range targets, and two-rounders are helpful for long-range firefights.

If an enemy is too far away for two-round bursts to be effective, you'll have to tap your mouse to shoot your gun as a semi-automatic, letting it reset after every shot to keep yourself accurate. Slowly, you'll start nailing those headshots from those long ranges.

When you understand which burst type is better for every range and if you need to spray or tap to win a gunfight as soon as you see an enemy, you'll feel more confident in every match. After learning two to three guns this way, you can expand and study the other ones the same way, one by one.

Learning To Move Better

Sound and movement are essential elements of a Counter-Strike 2 round. If you spent a reasonable amount of time focusing on centering and controlling your gun while peeking at every corner, now you'll need to slow down to pay attention to footsteps and find moments where walking will help you close plays cleanly.

When you press Shift, you'll walk slowly. While you're walking, you won't make any sounds. Good players use this to their advantage when repositioning or pushing corners. The best advice is to keep playing as aggressively as possible while learning to leverage silent movements as part of your game.

At first, you'll feel slow pushing a corner this way, but trust your centering and focus on those plays for a while; you'll start to find your groove during clutch moments sooner than you think.

After familiarizing yourself with the slow movement, try walking up to different corners slowly; when you're close to one corner, stop walking and swing wide quickly before taking your shots. You'll catch many players off-guard practicing that technique along with your centering and recoil control.

Additionally, learn to crouch-jump. This technique is used to get on top of certain surfaces that otherwise would be unreachable. To do it, press Space and then Ctrl while in midair. If you do it right, your model will literally crouch while jumping so their legs won't get in the way of some high ledges when getting on top.

You can try to crouch jump on every surface you cannot reach with regular jumps. You'll be surprised at how many spots you can reach with it. After some time practicing it, you'll be able to traverse these spots without thinking about it.

Learning To Position Properly

While the basic principle behind proper positioning is to get behind as much cover as possible when taking any shot, perfect positioning means you will always find your enemies off-guard and with their crosshairs off-centered, which means higher chances of winning most gunfights.

To improve at it, learn to peek as briefly as possible, not to shoot, but to get information about enemies' positions and control advantageous spots for endgame clutches. Playing to survive is really effective when practicing these clutches.

At this point, you shouldn't be pushing every corner but focusing on how to control as much space as possible from these vantage points; you'll soon understand when it is better to push or to camp at a corner and which of your favorite spots are the best to manage diverse crisis situations.

You can focus ona more supportive/defensive playstyle for some rounds to improve your positioning further. Instead of trying to be aggressive, find the best player in your team to cover for them and give them space.

If they're pushing an opening, camp around them to cover their blind spots and make sure no one messes with their play; if they're getting pushed and in a pinch, take the lead and try to clutch to save them. Although you'll get killed initially, you'll quickly learn how to position yourself to keep everyone alive around you during casual matches.

How To Improve Your Raw Aim

Aiming is one of the most critical aspects of Counter-Strike 2. If you're superb at raw aim, you'll walk through many different teams without thinking much about it. If you're struggling with your aim, you can practice with an aiming-focused program like AimLabs or Kovak's.

While playing lots of matches for hours will make you good at aiming, solely focusing on it using a dedicated app will get you ahead quicker. Lots of professional players do it, and you can also take advantage of it.

If you want to integrate aim training into your routine, try to practice 20 minutes before your real matches as a warm-up. Additionally, practice drills that can be applied in Counter-Strike 2, with a focus on accuracy over speed. The most important aspect of this game's aim is micro-adjusting, so focus on that first.

On top of that, there are several aim-focused practice maps. Many professional players spend hours on these maps and swear by them. These training maps are extremely useful because, unlike AimLab or Kovak's, these won't only help you with your raw aim, but also with recoil control and tap firing at distant targets.

One of the most popular is called CS2_aim. The map features a shooting range with a 360-degree view to practice aiming from all angles and from different ranges. It also features several game modes for focused practice sessions.

Learning Basic Economy

While you could start every casual match by just buying the primary rifle all rounds, if you're having a tough match, some rounds you won't have the money. There are nuances to how money is distributed in Counter-Strike 2. Here are the fundamentals.

Each team starts with $800 on pistol rounds. Every player in the winning team gets $3,250 for winning a round; if you plant or defuse a bomb, you'll also get a bonus on top of it. The losing team also gets money. This sum varies depending on how many consecutive rounds they've lost.

Additionally, killing people grants money. The sum depends on the weapon you get a kill with. Rifles and pistols grant $300, SMGs, except for the P90, grant $600, shotguns grant $900, and the AWP only grants $100 per kill.

If you're low on cash for an expensive rifle, consider buying a shotgun and camping for one round just to get money back into your bank. In this video, Youtuber WilsonCS2 explains Counter-Strike 2's economy in more detail.

Inexperienced players will look at tips like centering or recoil control and think that these are just basic concepts and that everyone knows how to implement them correctly. This is not true; these fundamental skills are the cornerstone of every CS player's play style and can be improved almost to infinity.

After a couple of months of practicing these concepts, you'll understand what you're good at and how to abuse it during clutches, and diving into more complex topics to improve your play will be easier.