How Will Counter Strike 2 Deal with Cheaters?

Counter-Strike 2 is confirmed for Summer 2023 and there are definitely more questions than answers since Valve was very restrictive about what they revealed regarding Counter-Strike 2. The player amount in CS:GO is unironically going up constantly since March 2022 and a big transition will happen once “CS2” goes live, which will probably include a lot of people who just gave up on CS:GO. It’s going to be a free upgrade, so with a lot of honest lovers of the Counter-Strike franchise, we will also see a rise of malicious players who will come with the intent to cheat as much as possible without getting caught. VAC (Valve Anti-Cheat) should be there to protect honest players, but VAC is not perfect and has its shortcomings.

How will Valve deal with the expected influx of cheaters in the upcoming Counter-Strike 2? Despite the legitimate growth of the player base, a good portion of people who quit CS:GO were people who were fed up with rampant cheaters in CS:GO competitive matchmaking.

Will VAC Be Better at Removing Cheaters in Counter-Strike 2?

Of course, we’ve spoken about the cheating problem in CS:GO earlier in another article, so if you are interested you may have a look below.

Related: Is Cheating a Problem in CS:GO? – Cheating Issue Explained

However, there is hope. There’s definitely a reason to have high expectations from Valve. And that line is not written for nothing. Dota 2 has already been on Source 2 for over half a decade now, and naturally, Dota 2 is a testing ground for a lot of cool stuff. Recently, Valve have devised a new way to catch cheaters by putting some specific stuff in the code, about which we’ve written in a separate article which is linked below.

Related: Our Lord and Savior Emperor Gaben Drops a 40k Banhammer in Dota 2 Against Cheaters

This “honeypot” strategy might keep evolving further and giving Valve more ways to catch cheaters as they come. In my personal opinion, after recalling the most recent Dota 2 ban wave and informing myself about the Tick Rate Changes, I can’t help myself but think that there might be a honeypot there as well and that cheaters will probably emit some sort of “signature” or “signal” with their unauthorized third-party software toward the Valve’s CS2 Matchmaking Server, which honest and clean players won’t.

A lot of trust is to be regained by Valve with Counter-Strike 2 and we hope that they are ready for the task. The problem is that when you know that VAC is not 100% efficient, every suspicious or lucky kill may put a doubt in the corner of your mind that you are being cheated against. In the meantime, check how you can enter the Counter-Strike 2 Beta Test. See you at Prima Games soon!