While many CS:GO players were frustrated to hear that Valve has seemingly halted work on the Source 2 engine, the long-standing tenure of the original Source engine has allowed modders to grow comfortable with the game's framework, and produce a staggering breadth of content. However, if the Source 2 is implemented into CS:GO after all , custom maps like Kaer Morhen will likely need to be redone after the upgr

Unfortunately, progress on Classic Offensive's Steam release has reached a complete standstill . To explain the situation, the team behind the CS:GO mod recently posted a statement on Twitter, revealing that despite years of effort and compliance with Valve's legal guidelines over the usage of the Counter-Strike IP, Classic Offensive never saw the light of day on Steam. Moreover, the team's communication with Valve apparently ceased in late 2020, and the situation escalated when Classic Offensive was submitted for a build review on October 6, 2024. After weeks of silence, the team received an automated message from Valve declaring that the Steamworks app for Classic Offensive had been retired without explanat

It's currently unclear why Valve moved forward with these changes in France, in particular. So far France has not enacted any new regulations to account for loot boxes in video games, though French courts did recently rule that Steam has to allow users to resell their digital games . In 2018, the French online gambling regulatory body even assessed that loot boxes were not gambling under the country's current regulation. Perhaps Valve is using France as a testing bed or perhaps the decision is intended to shift discourse within the country or Europe. Either way, Valve certainly appears to be taking steps to protect the profits it receives from loot boxes amid the growing international controve

This has been a big year for high-profile bans. Dozens of high profile accounts have been hit with temporary and permanent bans in 2020 for inappropriate behavior including the use of sexist, homophobic, and racist slurs. For example, the extremely popular German Twitch Partner and YouTuber MontanaBlack88 was banned for posting videos of himself harassing women last mo

In order to further contain CS:GO 's French marketplace, perhaps to avoid market manipulation through the use of X-Ray Scanners, Valve is making one additional change. Loot boxes can no longer be purchased from the Steam Community Market in France. All CS:GO players in the country will have to earn their own loot boxes. Though, naturally, Valve will still allow those players to sell their loot boxes to those in other countr

Oleksandr ‘S1mple’ Kostyliev, arguably one of the best CS:GO players in the world, was banned on October 30 for saying a Russian slur. The leading player of Natus Vincere's CS:GO squad, S1mple has been banned for aggressive behavior and the use of slurs before, as recently as July 30. Some fans are concerned that S1mple's fourth strike-out will put him at risk of incurring a permanent

There have been mixed responses to this change in the comments of a post by CS:GO 's Twitter account, and on the r/csgo subreddit. Many decry the change for giving teams that inadvertently lose members from disconnects or those that kick potentially "toxic" individuals a more substantial disadvantage. Others suggest players have abused the bot system by kicking out other users they deem to be less useful on the battlefield, but even then many feel there was likely a better solut

In what appears to be bizarre effort to avoid oversight for its loot boxes, the developers of Counter-Strike 2 skins|https://counterstrike2Zone.com/: Global Offensive have added a controversial new feature. The new feature is exclusive to France, where lawmakers are currently evaluating new regulations regarding loot boxes and gambling in video games. The feature, in an extremely limited fashion, allows players to look inside of a loot box prior to spending money to unlock it. And Valve clearly believes it will help CS:GO avoid additional scrut

One of the game's newest additions allows terrorist and counter-terrorist operatives to vacation at Kaer Morhen, the home base of Geralt of Rivia. The map is an impressively detailed recreation of The Witcher 3 's fortress and the witcher training ground, which functions as a surprisingly good playground for firefights. While the map may not represent a radical gameplay shift, like CS:GO 's Mad Max custom map , the blind corners, ramparts, and courtyards of the keep provide an interesting mix of cover and vantage poi

As if that isn't frustrating enough, Valve has apparently "preloaded" the X-Ray Scanner with an item already. Meaning that players will have to purchase this item, regardless of whether they want it, in order to use the X-Ray Scanner on a loot box. The X-Ray Scanner may appear to be beneficial to players, but ultimately is just another effort at encouraging players to begin purchasing microtransactions . There's little reason to believe it's significantly beneficial over