The first direct sequel to one of the most important games in PC history, Counter-Strike 2, was released on September 27 after a limited testing period of nearly six months. Valve has any plans to introduce new weapons during the game's lifespan?

"Yes," says the CS2 development team. 'It's not our top priority at the moment, but we definitely plan to introduce new weapons in CS2. We are always looking for ways to help players make more interesting decisions in the game, so we will be looking at cases where players either don't have the right tools to approach a situation or only have one or two tools available. Where is the gameplay getting stuck in a rut?" What weapons would shake up the status quo?

"In the 10 years of CS:GO, we've learned the sometimes painful lesson of how to gracefully introduce new weapons into the game, and with CS2's customizable loadout, shipping weapons should be much easier."

This is great, but perhaps not the most surprising statement of intent after CS:GO has introduced several new kits during its lifespan. My particular favorite is the low-cost Zeus x27 taser, which is an excellent eco investment and a top-class trolling tool.

"When we launched the R8 pistol, we had some serious bugs," says the CS2 development team. "These bugs were fixed the next day (and the weapon's damage was lowered the day after that), but since the gun was introduced in all game modes, that period of time affected everyone and was very confusing."

"Among the many things we learned from the R8, shipping a new (or heavily modified) weapon was to be more careful when doing so and to allow players to pace themselves before making them available anywhere.

Interestingly, while Valve is obviously right, the launch of the R8 is a fond memory for me: the R8, which came as part of CS:GO's big 2015 winter update, was so broken that we had to call in a specialist to explain how bad it was. We had to have a specialist come in and explain how bad it was. But by the same token, it was hilarious that this super-balanced competitive shooter had everyone exclusively using a completely unbalanced hand cannon for a few days. Those few days seemed almost like a novelty mode, because Valve rarely pulls this kind of thing off, so when they do, we look back on it as a bit of a treat.

Read the full PCG interview with the Valve CS2 development team about the game's past, present, and future here.