Update on Majors and Coaching
2020.09.09 - 
Majors
When we announced the Rio Major, we were excited to bring a CS:GO Major to one of Counter-Strike’s most passionate fan bases. At the time, we couldn’t have imagined the global challenges that have limited live events throughout 2020.
We’re not going to ask players and fans to risk their health in order to attend a Major while the pandemic still poses a threat to travelers. Therefore, we have made the painful decision to cancel the November Major.
So, what’s the plan? First, we’re going to hold off on scheduling Majors until, at a minimum, Regional Major Ranking (RMR) LAN events are safe to hold around the world. Until then, we expect to continue to hold online RMR events to keep track of the best teams in each region.
Coaching
Recently we’ve been made aware that several coaches of professional CS:GO teams exploited a bug in the game in order to gain an advantage over their opponents. It is unfortunate and frustrating that we did not respond to this bug sooner. But bugs are the reality of software—and until they are resolved, we need to be able to trust players and coaches.
We won’t spend much time here reiterating our stance on the importance of integrity in CS:GO matches. At a minimum, we expect that players and coaches will play by the rules, and immediately pause the match and alert tournament admins if they know of an issue that may give them (or an opponent) an unfair advantage.
Any teams that were disqualified for exploiting this bug during an RMR event will have their RMR points reset.
As for taking action against individual coaches, we’re going to wait until we get a complete picture of the extent of the bug abuse and the punishments handed down by third parties. Regardless of those penalties, mid-match coaching will always be a tempting opportunity for some teams to violate the integrity of the match. So we may also consider limitations to coaching.
We’re looking forward to getting LAN events started again, and hope that we can all find a safe way to do it soon.
On the Case
2020.08.06 -
Today’s update includes some networking improvements, updates to Swamp, Mutiny, and Anubis, and an all new weapon case!
Today’s update includes some networking improvements, updates to Swamp, Mutiny, and Anubis, and an all new weapon case! The Fracture Collection
Introducing the Fracture Collection, featuring designs from over 17 different community artists, and including the Shattered Web Knives as rare special items!
Swamp Thing
2020.07.23 -
Today we’re introducing two community maps: Swamp and Mutiny. Check them out in Casual or Deathmatch to get your feet wet, and then jump into a Scrimmage for a full match!
There’s more in today’s update, check out the release notes here.
Trusted Mode
2020.07.08 -
Today we’re shipping changes to CS:GO that are part of our continuing fight against cheating.
CS:GO now significantly restricts the types of programs and files that can interact with the game.
By default, players will launch CS:GO in Trusted mode, which will block third-party files from interacting with the game.
If you would like to play while using third party software that interacts with CS:GO, launch with the -untrusted launch option. Note that in this case your Trust score may be negatively affected.
Interacting with CS:GO
2020.06.26 -
Today we’re shipping an optional beta branch of CS:GO with changes that are part of our continuing fight against cheating. To help out, you can opt in to the beta by following the instructions here.
CS:GO now significantly restricts the types of programs and files that can interact with the game.
In the unlikely event that you launch the game with incompatible files, you will receive a warning indicating the incompatible file and may be blocked from joining VAC-enabled servers. To resolve the issue, you can disable the ‘Trusted Launch’ in your game settings, however this may temporarily impact your trust score.
For developers of third-party programs that interact directly with the CS:GO executable process, we have added requirements that will impact your software. Moving forward, all DLLs that interact with CS:GO will need to be digitally signed with an Authenticode signature. Additionally, we will block signed DLLs if their functionality interferes with the game in any way.
