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CS:GO is over 8 years old, and a lot has changed in that time. Some of these changes are more
recent than you might imagine, while others, far older. Let’s see how the game has changed,
going back year by year as of the end of April 2021.
In the past year, CS:GO has removed bots from matchmaking. We got the 10th Operation: Broken
Fang. We got the new pinging and chat features as part of this, and the map ‘Ancient’
to fill the Aztec-shaped hole in our hearts. Demo playback now speeds up every time you
play the same demo, thanks to timestamps at the start of every round… though I still
believe this is kind of buggy. Swearwords are now filtered by default… even some words
that shouldn’t have been. But it’s improving. We got texture streaming, which is why when
levels first load you sometimes see it ‘pop’ from low resolution to high. AND… we got
new killfeed icons at the start of May 2020. Between 1 and 2 years ago, we got warmup arenas,
which were then gradually introduced a few maps at a time. And… Half Life Alyx was
released! Valve also rolled out the Squelching Noise update which eventually mutes toxic
players by default, not to be confused with the swearword filter that came afterwards.
Operation: Shattered Web came out in November 2019, and along with it we received custom
player model skins that can be equipped for either team. When a match ends, instead of
jumping straight to the scoreboard, this update changed it to show the players and what they
achieved in the match. The game also got support for ‘pearlescent’ skins which appear to
change colour depending on the lighting conditions. The new Cache remake was released, and health
shots were added to deathmatch, given to players after a kill streak. Bot AI got an improvement
to make their aim and navigation more natural. I believe this is also when they started being
able to see straight through smoke grenades and that’s why the recent guardian challenges
have been so infuriating. Scrimmage mode was added to the game for players who want the
pain of matchmaking but without the chance of ranking up, and with a limited map selection.
Dust2 got a retro version to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Counter-Strike’s first
beta. And we got a ballistic shield added to dangerzone.
Between 2 and 3 years ago, we got Sirocco, the second dangerzone map for the game. The
loss bonus system for the game changed so the suckiest team’s loss money wouldn’t
be completely reset the moment they won a round. The M4A1-S got upgraded from 20 to
25 bullets in its clip, magazine, wha-ever, and the shotguns got buffed by having their
prices dropped, and some other small adjustments. VERTIGO returned to the game at the very start
of 2019, and with it, you no longer needed a phone number attached to your account to
get prime. Militia got a snowy theme, snowballs were ‘rolled’ out as part of the Christmas
celebrations… and CS:GO went FREE TO PLAY, and got its own battle royale gamemode. Halloween
that year saw pumpkin footballs, a Halloween version of Cbble and players turned into ghosts
after they died. Just before this, the AUG and SG got the price drops that would eventually
lead to everybody using them, before they were returned to their normal prices again
when the shotguns got their buffs. Since we’re working backwards through time, things get
a bit confusing, but CS:GO got a ‘Free Edition’ about 3 months before it became fully free
to play. This free version was limited to offline play against bots, and being able
to view multiplayer games. You didn’t even have access to your inventory! In mid-August
2018, the MP5 was added to the game, and just before that, the C4 got different sounds depending
on which bombsite it had been planted at. The game got the much awaited PANORAMA UI
overhaul, and there was much rejoicing. I have a video covering this where I talk more
about how it was before, since that’s probably what you’re more interested in knowing now.
Mirage got itself a few graphical improvements, but nothing like a real remake. GDPR came
into force requiring Valve to reveal all the information they had on players and their
match history, and the game got reverb sound effects similar to those heard in Half Life
1, allowing different rooms to sound different depending on their size and so on.
Between 3 and 4 years ago, Valve revealed Vacnet at GDC and their ambitious plans to
combat cheaters. Nuke’s boost was made into how it is today, and CS:GO’s peak viewership
during a major was achieved in the Boston 2018 event between Faze and Cloud9. In December,
the shotguns’ spray patterns were fixed to make them easier to master, and this rolled
out to matchmaking a few months later. Trust Factor was added to matchmaking! This was
a big day for the game, as it was also the day that Dust and Aztec were removed from
it, and was the day that Wingman and Flying Scoutsman became permanent gamemodes.
Sound occlusion was improved, we got the new Dust2 and Leet Krew models, aimpunch was reduced
on unarmoured headshots, and the P250 was nerfed so that it could no longer one-hit
kill helmeted enemies. The tec9 got a spray and pray nerf, and Gambit won a major. GOTV
was updated to support time travel, delaying what the audience sees by a few seconds to
give Sliggy time to get the best camera angle. Normal maps were added to the CZ Victoria
skin, but was then quickly rolled out elsewhere as well. And Operation Hydra began, complete
with many minigame mods including, you guessed it, Wingman and Flying Scoutsman.
Between 4 and 5 years ago- yes, OVER 4 YEARS AGO- the negev got its aim changed to how
it is today, and had its price lowered down from $5,700 to 4000… and then quickly down
to $2000 and with changes to its mechanics. It was dropped further to $1700 a year after,
along with some other changes. But THIS was the big change. Over 4 years ago. The canals
map was released, and along with it the Phoenix Models got an upgrade. Dust2 was moved out
of the competitive map pool and into its own place, a testament to the map’s popularity,
but in many ways was also the first nail in the map’s coffin. Astralis won their first
of many majors at Atlanta. And according to what Valve said later, Vacnet started operating
at the start of 2017. End of 2016 marks the half-way point between
when the game came out, and now. We got the new SAS model which could be seen on Inferno,
which was released just a few months prior. We got the HRTF audio update so that players
could finally tell where sounds were coming from, and Nuke’s bombsite B used to have
a ladder up to the top of silo, and this was removed about then as well. We also got GLOVES!
Jump-shooting with the scout was nerfed, and throughout 2016 the weapons all got their
sounds replaced with less ear-damaging versions. Rifles got new recovery rates to encourage
burst firing, but to discourage spraying. SK won the major at Cologne, and the beta
client became a thing for Valve to test new changes with. Character animations were changed
to better represent the player’s viewpoint, especially when falling. Cache gets an HD
make-over- not the total remake that we got more recently, but more like a texture replacement
pack for the older version to improve definition. Between 5 and 6 years ago, LG won the Columbus
major and the seventh Operation, Wildfire, came out, along with the new Nuke. At the
start of 2016, we received high resolution arm and glove models. This was 11 months before
custom gloves came out for the game. For Christmas 2015 we got the one minute timeout
for matches, a deathcam replay feature, shortened match and c4 times and, of course, the R8
revolver: a high accuracy, one hit groin kill device that put the rifles to shame! And to
top it all off, we also got a number of controversial changes to rifle accuracy, all of which was
reverted back after just a couple of days. The game got lots of new footstep sounds to
cut down on repetition, Team Envy won the Major at Cluj-Napoca, and there was the big
hitbox update where the cubes were swapped out for more accurate sausage shapes. Model
culling was used to prevent body parts from poking through walls, and the C4 got wires
attached to it to indicate when it’s being defused. This update also made defusing players
move a lot less than they did before, when it was possible to spin around ridiculously
quickly to avoid being headshot. Oh, and the zeus had its price dropped from $400 to $100.
In Cologne, Fnatic won a major for the last time. The train on overpass got its timing
fixed after it messed with Cloud9’s nades, and the overwatch system was released for
everyone- having already been in beta for over 2 years at this point. Yeah, I can’t
believe how long it’s been in the game either. Perhaps to help with overwatch, GOTV got its
tickrate upped from 16 to 32, and a few weeks before this started the sixth Operation: Bloodhound.
Along with this, CS:GO got its experience system, and the guardian gamemode. Casual
rounds had their length reduced from 3 minutes down to 2:15.
Between 6 and 7 years ago, CS:GO got an improved voice codec. Before this point everybody sounded
muffled and horrible. Smoke grenades were made to appear ‘more consistent’, and
for Christmas 2014, Train got remade. The day after this, the pigeon exploit was fixed.
The CZ got nerfed in this time, going from 12 rounds and 1 reserve magazine to 8 rounds
and 2 reserve magazines, before returning to how it was before soon afterwards. The
deagle had its price dropped from $800 to $700, and LDLC won the major in Jönköping…
Sweden. Almost six and a half years ago, the OLOFBOOST incident occurred on overpass! Following
backlash, Fnatic forfeited the tournament. But it was very entertaining. We got the 5th
Operation, Vanguard, and with it matchmaking got restrictions so only people of similar
ranks could play together, and friendly fire was disabled on some of the casual gamemodes.
For Halloween 2014, players got Halloween masks, zombie chickens, and just before that,
music kits were introduced to the game. Tagging (where you slow down when you’re shot) got
an overhaul to make it more cumulative in nature. And players’ movement changed, making
them slower to accelerate, faster to decelerate, nerfing ADAD pistol battles which were prominent
at the time. The tec9 got buffs just before this, making it a beastly weapon that fnatic
used to great effect for a while afterwards. In perhaps the shortest patchnote ever, CS:GO
wished itself happy birthday. IBP’s match-fixing incident happened. And NIP won their first
and last major at Cologne. The 4th Operation: Breakout was released with a revised bullet
penetration system, and maps were split into active and reserve duty and Cache was added
to the game permanently. The HOWL plagiarism incident happened, making the skin the first
and only to be contraband in nature. And the scout had its price dropped from $2000 down
to $1700. And this wasn’t even the first price drop it had received! More on that later.
Between 7 and 8 years ago, the game disappears into the distant past. Virtus Pro won a major
at Katowice, we got the 3rd Operation: Phoenix, and teammates got different colours, starting
the whole ‘purple teammate’ meme. The CZ was added to the game, as were sticker
capsules, and the ability to throw grenades under-arm. Back in Christmas 2013, Cbble and
Overpass were added, along with the Winter Offensive case- being the first to contain
community-made skins. It’s here we have to move to the OLD patchnotes. The game got
its first Major, being Dreamhack in Sweden. The demoui had its interface overhauled. Hard
to believe, but it used to be even worse- which you can still see if you load it up
in CS:S today. The C4 was made so that only the player planting could hear the buttons
being pressed, allowing for fake defuses to become a thing. When flashed, players would
now raise their arm in front of their face- and a few years after this, and after being
killed by apparently flashed enemies, it was tweaked so that it gradually dropped down
as they regained vision again. For the second Operation, Bravo, Cache and Agency were first
added to the game. But at this point was only for the operation. ‘The Arms Deal Collection
Contract’ was renamed to ‘Trade Up Contract’. Aztec got its layout changed to be more balanced,
and skins were first introduced into the game as part of the ‘armsdeal update’. The
M4A1-S and USP-S were added to the game, and various new animations were added to the game,
including the ‘inspect weapon’ button, physically modelled dropped magazines resulting
from reloads, and bullets running out as you near the end of a negev clip. No, magazine.
No, belt! Up till this point, there had been 2 versions of every map: a pretty version
for casual play, and one for competitive play with less fog, fewer details like cables and
stuff. In really old blog posts Valve argued that fog could make players EASIER to see,
but they backtracked on this and combined the two versions together, which is what we’ve
had ever since. Mirage was added to the game, and the overwatch
beta started. For competitive play, an update allowed for 2 flash bangs to be held at the
same time. Before then, it was only 1. Beyond 8 years ago, we get to the earliest
days of the game. The first Operation: Payback. And with it, the inclusion of the first community-made
maps. The addition of Militia. Numerous pistols were reworked. If you see really old videos
of the game where people are doing weird things with pistols, don’t criticise them- for
they may have had good reason to. The CSGO maps workshop opened up, and deathmatch was
added to the game. On the 12th of the 12th of the 12th, Valve changed Nuke with changes
suggested by pro player, Volcano. Back in October, skillgroups were added to the game
which gave everybody an incentive to do competitive matches, and a month before were 2 new maps-
Monastery and Vertigo. Gunshot flinch animations a few weeks before that… and the game was
released on August 21st, 2012. And then it goes into the betas. There were a lot of changes
there as well… but I’ll save that for another day.
When making this list, several things became apparent. Some updates were older than I remembered
them being. Some were newer. I think this is down to when the game has been most popular.
I don’t consider the game being released in 2012, because what I know it for today
only really begun in 2014. I followed the pro scene for a while, but haven’t done
so more recently so I tend to remember the older events as being the most iconic. Which
is clearly wrong of me! Other things that are apparent are that the biggest changes
to the game coincide with new operations… and I now feel incredibly old.