Amazing to finally see some work being put into CS, and just this smoke grenade sneak peek already makes me very curious to see how this will play in practice.
It's clear at least that they aren't afraid of changing the meta in a rather substantial way -- which is of course dangerous on one hand, since I'm guessing CS is so popular precisely because of its timelessness, but also necessary on the other hand if we ever want to improve upon it.
CSGO has had a lot of work put into it. It's a very different game than when I started playing it (over 10 years ago). I remember it wasn't even developed by Valve, originally. It was developed by Hidden Path Entertainment. For a long time after it was released, CS 1.6 and Source were still more popular than it. None of the maps in the current Active Duty pool were included in the initial CSGO release. They've either been re-made from scratch or are entirely new. Every weapon other than maybe the knife has undergone balancing changes in terms of cost, reload speed, movement speed, accuracy, etc. Various new weapons have been added to the game. New game modes have been added, including Danger Zone, which is pretty much an entire game of itself. Battle passes have been introduced. Skins implemented. Etc., etc. - and 1.6 and Source are all but forgotten.
I think this is actually the key to understanding the significance of CS2. It looks very similar to CSGO. But, in 10 years time, I suspect many major changes will have been made that will distinguish it very much from CSGO, updates that would have been impossible if they'd stuck with the source engine.
There's a part of the website that states it'll be an upgrade to CSGO. I wonder if that means we're losing CSGO, or if there will be some sort of "legacy mode" that either retains CSGO as an option or simply shims its gameplay into CS2.
CS does change substantially between releases. The movement has gotten slower and less nimble since CS:Source and the AK/M4 primary dominance is markedly reduced in CS:GO.
It's clear at least that they aren't afraid of changing the meta in a rather substantial way -- which is of course dangerous on one hand, since I'm guessing CS is so popular precisely because of its timelessness, but also necessary on the other hand if we ever want to improve upon it.