Counter-Strike players spend thousands of hours honing their craft, becoming deeply familiar with every facet of the game; therefore, CS2 players have a reputation for being, let’s say, ‘sensitive’ to change.
However, when that change affects the skins, they spent hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars on, well… you can be sure there will be a reaction from the players.
CS2’s latest update includes news that the game will be migrating its animations to a new system. The update has seemingly had unexpected consequences on several animations, resulting in knives clipping through the player’s hand, knives pointing the wrong direction, or even having the wrong animation applied to them.
Valve’s patch notes describe the change as such: “The animation system in CS2 is in the process of being upgraded to AnimGraph2, which requires reauthoring existing game content. Today’s update replaces all first-person animations, including weapon deploy, firing, reload, and inspect animations”
Butterfly Animation broken
The Butterfly Knife is one of Counter-Strike’s most desirable items, typically selling for $800-900 for the cheapest version of the knife, with the Butterfly Knife Gamma Doppler (Emerald) currently listed for $22,000 on seller sites.
Several videos emerged almost immediately after the update, showing the animation with the knife’s animation looking broken, clipping through the player and itself.
Seemingly, the Butterfly is not alone, with similar videos showing issues with the Nomad Knife, Flip Knife, and M9 Bayonet circulating on social media.
NaVi content creator and Copenhagen Major MVP, Justinas ‘jL’ Lekavicius was one of the first to point out the changes to the Butterfly Knife and AK-47 on social media. The player was recently benched in a “joint decision,” allowing jL to take a break from competitive play; however, the update perhaps was not the most relaxing for the Lithuanian.
Despite stating “they ruined the butterfly and ak,” jL expressed appreciation for the other new animations. jL’s opinions seem in line with the general sentiment, with players expressing appreciation especially for the new ’empty’ animations, which are special animations for reloading several weapon types when their magazines are empty.
AK-47 sound changes
One casualty of the update seems to be the AK-47 sound, which has caused discordance in the community, with some wondering why the sound had to change in line with the animations. Former pro-player and streamer Erik ‘fl0m’ Flom remarked, “I just don’t like it. It sounds cheap. Why does my AK sound plastic?”
CSGO veterans will remember that this is not the first time Counter-Strike has had a controversial update that affected sound. The AK-47 used to sound like a tinny explosion in a hallway, prior to the 2016 sound update that brought new sounds to CSGO’s classic weapons.
Map updates
While Valve set about fixing a few of those animations, players can try out the changes to the maps listed in the patch notes. The patch contains significant updates to Train, Overpass, and Inferno, with the latter especially having meta-defining changes.
Interno’s B site now features a wider entrance from the Garden position, making retakes easier for CTs. Inferno’s B bombsite has consistently been one of the hardest to retake in CSGO and CS2, with CTs rarely even attempting. Now, Ts hiding at new-box will be vulnerable to incendiaries from Garden, with the CTs in general having more options.
A site also sees the reintroduction of the railing from Balcony, again favouring the CTs with the Ts having to take the extra jump to scale the railing, slowing down their execute.
For Train and Overpass, the changes are relatively minor but still may have a sizeable impact on how the map plays out. Overpass sees the angle of Optimus (A site truck) adjusted, Heaven railing adjusted, and adjustments to the wall behind A site.
Train has added new boxes at the B side of Z (Connector), B halls, and one beside the Hell train. The Hell boxes have handy barrels, allowing AWPers to have vision of popdog and A main with only their head popping out.
Other adjustments can be seen in the full notes of the map adjustments below:
Overpass
- Breakable glass added to B doors
- Adjusted Heaven railing
- Adjusted angle of truck on A site
- Blocked view from truckbed to stairs
- Moved up wall behind dumpster, by A stairs
- Adjusted texturing on dumpster back wall
- Removed some grass near A site
- Flattened tops of broken walls near B site
- Re-enabled wires around the map
Train
- Added new cover on A site by Hell train
- Added new cover and adjusted platform on B site outside of Z
- Added new cover in Upper B halls
- Adjusted cover in Ivy
- Removed horizontal stripes on large doors in A site
- Raised CT side platform in B
- Adjusted lighting on B site
- Adjusted clipping throughout
Inferno
- Church windows opened above Coffins
- Church garden pathway narrowed by entrance door and widened by Coffins
- Adjusted shape of first box on B site
- Repairs on A site balcony railing have been completed
- Curbs removed along Mid
- Arch light moved to ceiling
- Adjusted Banana visuals to improve player legibility
- Adjusted props throughout
Darragh Harbinson is an esports writer specialising in Counter-Strike. He has written for Esports News UK, Esports Insider, UKCSGO, Dexerto, and Rush B Media.
