Counter-Strike 2 News

CSPPA delays release of CS:GO rankings to "improve the methodology"

The Counter-Strike Professional Players' Association has today announced that it will be delaying the release of its monthly CS:GO world rankings to focus on "improving the methodology."

The CSPPA's first world rankings announcement last month drew a lot of questions and criticism from the CS:GO community for its massive discrepancies compared to established rankings from the likes of ESL or HLTV. The CSPPA's rankings aimed to rank teams on their performances at events but would penalise them or give less weight to results from events that would clash with its ethos of creating better working conditions for players.

While the sentiment seems good in practise, the order in which the CSPPA ranked the world's top teams was laughed at by a large portion of the CS:GO community. The association has now announced that it will not release September's rankings in order to focus on "improving the methodology" after plenty of feedback. It will now return with a rankings update in October instead.

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CS:GO referee fears there may be more coach spectator bugs

While the CS:GO spectator bug at the centre of a massive ESIC cheating investigation has now been patched by developers Valve, one of the referees helping the investigation has warned there could be more bugs that could be exploited - some of which are potentially worse than the first.

Appearing on the HLTV Confirmed podcast, esports referee Michal Slowinski was being quizzed about the process he went through to first identify cheaters using the CS:GO spectator bug. When host Chad 'SPUNJ' Burchill alluded to the fact the bug was no longer in the game, Slowinski admits that there are at least "two more different instances that we might be looking into right now." The referee also clarifies that these are different variations of the coach spectator bug and that they can actually offer "more of an advantage" than the initial bug that is currently being investigated by ESIC.

"[The first] instance of the bug has now been fixed, but unfortunately there might be more," Slowinski says. "I think there might be like two more different instances that we are looking into right now. It's actually even more of an advantage, so let's hope it's not too bad."

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Rejin and F_N1 confess to exploiting CS:GO coach spectator bug

Another two Counter-Strike: Global Offensive coaches have been suspended pending investigation after they confessed to using the infamous coach spectating bug. Allan 'Rejin' Petersen and Ivan 'F_1N' Kochugov have been suspended from mousesports and Gambit Youngsters respectively.

The coaches both came forward with their admissions on Twitter over the weekend after the Esports Integrity Commission announced it would be opening a confession period for coaches as part of its investigation into abuse of the bug, which reportedly stretches back as far as 2016.

Rejin says he used the bug, which he discovered by "accident", in a number of matches when he was coaching Tricked in 2017-2018, but the players were unaware of his activity. The coach, who promises he never exploited the bug while coaching mousesports, made league admins aware of the bug after encountering it again during ESL Road to Rio, leading to the investigation we know today.

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CS:GO tips: check out our Counter-Strike: Global Offensive guide

Since Counter-Strike: Global Offensive's release in 2012, it's become one of the most popular esports in the world - let alone one of the most played FPS games - regularly pulling in audiences in the millions. On top of that, it's expanded with its own battle royale mode and heaps of new maps, and it's even gone free-to-play.

Since its release in 1999, Counter-Strike has always had a reputation for being hard to start playing. Anyone who plays it will have a story for you about how badly they got thrashed when they first started out, and countless new players have been scared off by CS' steep learning curve over the last decade and a half.

While its core mechanics are relatively simple - simply point the gun towards your enemies and shoot - once you dip below the surface, Counter-Strike quickly proves to be a much deeper game than it first seems. With that in mind, we've gathered together some helpful tips, so if you're one of those new players enticed by that 'free Steam games' tag, read on to help you swat up on Valve's famous FPS.

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Esports Integrity Commission launches investigation into CS:GO spectator bug

A formal investigation has been launched into the use of a coach spectating bug in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. The Esports Integrity Commission will be spending the bones of the next year looking into professional cheating in the FPS game.

In a post on the official site, the ESIC outlines the reasoning behind, and broad methodology, of the inquiry. At the start of September, coaches from Hard Legion, Heroic, and MIRB received suspensions from ESL for exploiting a glitch that allowed them to see the whole map and essentially spy on the opposing team. The ESIC has saw it fit to perform a wider look into other instances of the glitch being used to gain an upper hand. "We have reason to believe that exploitation of the spectator bug by other parties than those already sanctioned, may have existed historically," the post reads. "Accordingly, ESIC has decided to establish an inquiry into the exploitation of the spectator bug dating back to 2016."

Over the next eight months, some 25,000 demos from 2016 through to now will be reviewed by the ESIC, using AI and human eyes, in collaboration with esports referee Michal Slowinski and IT specialiat Steve Dudenhoeffer, who discovered the exploit. The ESIC itself was founded in 2016, hence the specific remit. Standardised sanctions will be doled out on a case-by-case basis.

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