Counter-Strike 2 News

"I will never let my team down" - mantuu talks overcoming injuries, ESIC ruling, and more

As a Polish-born Londoner playing for the German organisation Alternate aTTaX, Mateusz '⁠mantuu' Wilczewski turned a number of heads when it was announced he was joining OG's impressive line-up back in December 2019. A large portion of the CS:GO community had never even heard the 23-year-old's name, yet it didn't take long for mantuu to establish himself as one of OG's most consistent players.

In July 2020, mantuu revealed he was diagnosed with tenosynovitis in both hands, a condition that affects the tendons of the thumb side of his wrists, forcing him to take painkillers before every game. Despite this setback, mantuu managed to regain his impressive form, showing the CS:GO scene exactly why OG signed him up in the first place.

Since Mantuu is helping promote the UK qualifiers for Red Bull Flick, a global 2v2 tournament, we had the opportunity to talk exclusively with the rising star. Sign ups for the UK qualifiers are now open, and the winners will be granted a workshop with mantuu himself.

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Counter-Strike: Global Offensive update for 6 October 2020

Read patchnotes on SteamDB...

Xyp9x confirms he's back playing CS:GO, will play BLAST next month

More than four months since he announced his break from Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Denmark's official clutch minister Andreas 'Xyp9x' Højsleth has confirmed he's turned off his out of office and has returned to work.

The Astralis player has already started scrimming with his team, but fans will have to wait until November to see him in action. Due to Valve's Regional Major Ranking rules, Astralis will play DreamHack Open Fall tournament with Patrick 'es3tag' Hansen, who helped the team to a ESL Pro League Season 12 win over the weekend. Xyp9x will help the team prepare for the RMR tournament, before taking his place on the active roster for the BLAST Premier Fall Series. It's unclear at this stage which player he will be replacing.

Regardless, the news is promising for the team, which is now back up to full strength. Xyp9x took medical leave in May for reported burnout/stress symptoms, but appears to be back to full health and in a good mindset to begin competing once again.

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CS:GO meets The Witcher 3 with this new Kaer Morhen custom map

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and The Witcher 3 probably aren't games you'd think of putting together, but it turns out there's real scope for a crossover between the two behemoths of the FPS games and RPG games genres. One CS:GO modder's demonstrated just that with a new fan-made map based on Geralt of Rivia's home base of Kaer Morhen.

Creator ZelezoBeton's new CS:GO map is inspired by the fortress as it appears in The Witcher (which also stars in The Witcher 3), and while the modder says it's not a 1:1 replica of the open-world game's location, it's immediately recognisable as the School of the Wolf's home base. You can see it for yourself in action in the video clip below.

Set in the hills like The Witcher's own version, CS:GO Kaer Morhen features the same distinctive layout: the layered courtyards peppered with trees and crumbly rubble, cavernous old halls lit with candles and propped up with decaying beams - even Geralt's tower chamber is there, with its circular fireplace in the middle. There's even a bathtub.

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Steam phishing exploit fixed by Valve

Update: Valve have now fixed this exploit, so you're free to browse Steam until your little heart is content.

Basically, the exploit happened because a section of the 'My Guides Showcase' recognised scripts placed in the title section, opening it up to abuse. There are more details over on Reddit.

This isn't the first time something like this has happened, as you can see in the video above. Tomáš Duda, a developer working for SCS Software, uncovered an exploit in 2014, and his reports to Valve allegedly went unanswered.

He decided to show them by putting a bit of harmless code in there, making Steam do the Harlem Shake. It's funny, but it did get him a year ban.

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