New CS2 Patch Aimed at Removing Cheaters

I do not know why it took Valve this long to implement some of the changes that you’ll see later in the Patch Notes, but we finally got them about a year after the CS2 beta was announced. Hopefully, we’ll see fewer cheaters, but we are not there yet.

CS2 Patch Notes Analysis – April 25 2024

First, this might be long, so I’ll put a Table of Contents for you. Then, after you check out the release notes for April 25, 2024, we can go into some specifics.

CS2 Release Notes for 4/25/2024

VIEWMODEL

• Adjusted viewmodel bob movement
• Added “Preferred Viewmodel Left/Right Handedness” setting
• Added “Switch Viewmodel Left/Right Hand” key binding (default: US keyboard letter H) to switch hands temporarily during gameplay
• Viewmodel position setting and left/right hand state are now networked and visible to first-person spectators.
• Deprecated “Couch” viewmodel position setting

HUD

• Added “Radar Map Alternate Zoom” setting and “Toggle Radar Zoom” key binding to toggle between zoom levels during gameplay
• Added a radar icon for the local player when free cam spectating
• Added a grenade line-up reticle that appears shortly after pulling the pin. The timing can be configured for each grenade type independently
• Changed weapon Swap text (when pointing at a dropped weapon) to always show the gameplay name of the weapon instead of any customized name it might have.
• Added a kill feed icon for “in-air” kills
• Added the scoreboard to the ESC menu
• Added an icon to indicate bots on the scoreboard

BUY MENU

• Added a “Dropped Weapons” panel, which shows (and allows the direct pickup of) weapons that have been dropped by teammates that are standing in the buy zone
• Added the minimum amount of money that a player is guaranteed to have in the next round to the buy menu title bar. (thanks, Kadomos)

GAMEPLAY

• Increased Zeus movement speed and adjusted the attack cone
• Increased Zeus kill reward from $0 to $100 ($50 in Casual)
• Increased CZ75-Auto kill reward from $100 to $300 ($150 in Casual)
• Reduced XM1014 kill reward from $900 to $600 ($300 in Casual)

INVENTORY

• Lighting adjustments in Inspect background maps
• Added Wear Category to the info tooltip in the Inspect screen
• Added gameplay name in panels that used to only show customized name. E.g., Inspect screen, inventory tile

MAPS

• Replaced Overpass with Dust 2 in the Active Duty Group, current competition map pool, and Premier matchmaking
• Baggage
  • Opened roll-up doors at spawns
  • Updated models for some conveyors
  • Solidified stairs
  • Various bug fixes
• Inferno:
  • Removed overhanging building at top mid
  • Removed overhangs at bottom of banana
  • Various map tweaks to improve player collision and readability
• Overpass, Nuke, Vertigo, Mirage and Office
  • Bug and exploit fixes
  • Collision and line of sight adjustments
  • Minor performance improvements

WEAPON FINISHES

• AK-47 | Inheritance: Texture and mask adjustments
• USP-S | Jawbreaker: Corrected ambient occlusion texture

MISC

• Decoupled demo playback camera movement from playback speed. This allows moving the camera even if playback is paused
• Added ability to launch practice matches and workshop maps with party members
• Added Overwatch system to enable match demo review by trusted partners
• Copenhagen 2024 Major sticker capsules are on sale now -75% off
• Added ability to adjust brightness in windowed modes

Why Was Overwatch Removed from CS:GO and CS2, in the First Place?

Overwatch was removed from CS:GO at the start of summer 2023 for an undisclosed reason. It was available in the betas that you could activate from Steam options, but the live version of the game didn’t have it. This was probably phased out because the CS2 beta was underway (although, in a limited sense), so Valve’s CS team probably had to focus on it.

However, at the end of April 2024, Overwatch returned to the world of Counter-Strike. We will once again be able to download demos of players who were massively reported for aim botting, wallhacking, other hacks, and, of course, griefing. The idea is that such demos can get massively peer-reviewed, and every reviewer has the option to choose what happened during the demo playback:

• No suspicious or toxic behavior
• Aimbotting
• Wallhacking
• Griefing
• Other hacking (speed hacking, for example)

Based on the massive input from the community, the system will check if further action needs to be taken against the account. I think everyone is glad that Overwatch is back, but Valve needs to back it up with the VAC that actually works. I unironically think that my ranking would dramatically increase if a major ban wave happened right now. It stopped being funny, because cheaters stopped hiding their hacks knowing that nothing is being done against them at the moment.

Dust 2 Comes Back to Premier; Overpass Kicked Out

Dust 2, Dust II, or de_dust2 (depending on which generation you belong to) is probably the most popular map in Counter-Strike history. In fact, it’s so popular that many games (whether they’re a Counter-Strike knock-off or not) have stolen the core of its design and ported it in. When we were kids, we even fantasized about building a real-life Dust 2 court for paintball and airsoft.

Players have asked about this for a long time, but I can’t fathom that Overpass got booted out of Premier, and Mirage is still in. I’ve come to the understanding that Mirage is the most played map now (Inferno being a close second), and it’s becoming really stale to the point I never want to play another Mirage match, and I’ve learned to tolerate an occasional Inferno. Overpass didn’t deserve this.

We can Finally Hold Weapons in our Left Hand

No, it’s not a prank. You can legit switch hands in CS2 now. Now, weapon switching is a full animation instead of the instantaneous model mirroring we’ve had in CS 1.6 and CS:GO. I do not know why this took them this long, but hey. (By the way, they missed two weapons while implementing this feature; check out the detailed article for more info.)

Grenade Line-ups are Made Easier With New Crosshair Option

I vividly remember sharing my smoke line-up keybind that toggles between your actual crosshair, and two crossed lines that go between all four edges of your screen.

When you pull the pin of a grenade and hold your mouse button, a big crosshair will appear. It’s cool and has measurements as well, which will make sharing the ancient knowledge of smoke line-ups an even easier task for the community. It’s a neat quality-of-life change that everyone will like. If you don’t, you can turn it off. You can also adjust when exactly the new crosshair appears and whether you want to turn off your actual crosshair while aiming with grenades or not.

Weapon Dropping and Sharing is Even Easier Now

• “Please drop.”
• “OMG, it’s too far; please pass it to me.”
• “No, that’s my AK-47!”
• “Wait, I’ll shoot the AWP to you so you can make it to the contact point first.”

All of these dialogue options should now be gone. When a player drops a weapon in the freeze time (buy time) and it’s not picked up by anyone, it appears in everyone’s buy menu, under the weapons you can buy.

From there, just click the weapon you want to snatch, and it’s yours. I’ve also discovered a bug when I rapidly clicked a dropped USP-S for a few seconds which caused the menu to glitch and show two available USP-S pistols that nobody could pick up anymore.

Hopefully these changes mean the days of better and healthier CS2. Stay tuned to our CS2 game hub for more guides.