\[ MISC ]

• Fixed ability to plant C4 while standing on top of a teammate.

• Fixed a rendering bug on transparent charms attached to planted C4 or dropped weapons.

• Fixed a bug where Budapest 2025 Coin sometimes wasn't showing up in the scoreboard.

• Fixed a replay bug causing infinite shell casing effects.

• Updated the Budapest 2025 Imperial Esports sticker artwork.

\[ MAJOR ]

• The StarLadder Budapest Major Hub is now available. Visit the hub to purchase tournament items, play the Pick'Em Challenge and more.

• Purchase a Budapest 2025 Viewer Pass to receive an upgradable Budapest 2025 Coin. With an active pass, you can upgrade your coin and earn extra souvenir packages by playing the Pick'Em Challenge. Additionally, you will show up on the Active Pass Leaderboard where you can compare your Pick'Em Challenge performance to your friends.

\[ STORE ]

• Added new "Sticker Slab" item, a charm that seals any sticker and can be attached to weapons. The sealed sticker can be returned to your inventory at any time by cracking open and discarding the slab.

• Newly purchased Name Tag and StatTrak™ Swap Tool items can no longer be traded or listed on Community Market.

\[ GAMEPLAY ]

• Increased the maximum effective sv_maxvelocity to 16,384 units per second. The default value of 3500 is unchanged.

• Fixed a case where clients would mispredict jump button presses.

• Fixed a case where clients would mispredict jump apexes.

\[ MAPS ]

• Fixed skybox on Inferno that was blocking grenades.

\[ MISC ]

• Increased default bullet decal rendering distance.

• Glove models and animations in the UI/inventory now use Animgraph2, matching first-person in-game gloves.

• Enabled the pulsing light on the C4 view model.

• Updated the color scheme of Counter-Strike items in Steam Community Market and Web Inventory to match item quality colors.

• Performance improvements.

As 2025 comes to an end, the StarLadder Budpest Major 2025 is set to begin. Join us as the first stage begins on Monday, November 24th!

All three stages of the StarLadder Budapest Major will be played in front of live crowds at MTK Sportpark, and for the first time at a Counter-Strike Major, the Grand Finals will be best of five. Now more than ever, the Major Champions will need to prove their quality by winning three maps in the Active Duty Map Pool.

You can begin supporting your favorite teams participating in the Major with the Budapest 2025 Viewer Pass.

Your activated Budapest 2025 Viewer Pass includes a coin that can be upgraded by playing the Pick'Em challenge. Pass holders gain access to unlimited team graffiti for the duration of the event and can earn and purchase Souvenir Tokens, which can be redeemed for a Souvenir from the match of your choice.

And back by popular demand, Playoff Souvenirs for the StarLadder Budapest Major come with Souvenir Charms, featuring highlights from the match!

With the release of the Viewer Pass and Pick'Em Challenge, we are also releasing StarLadder Budapest Major tournament stickers, featuring logos of every team and signatures of every player participating in the Major.

Not ready to apply your favorite sticker? We got you! Today we are introducing Sticker Slabs—charms that let you show off a sticker with no commitment. Later, just break the slab to return the sticker to your inventory.

Today we're adding a new feature to demo playback called TrueView. With TrueView, demo playback will match the player's original experience much more closely.

Previously, demo playback showed the server's view of the world, without accounting for network latency. This could be confusing because shots would hit that didn't look like they should have, and vice versa. 

TrueView provides a more accurate representation of the observed player's experience by re-running their client-side prediction.

The video below shows the difference between the old demo playback and the same playback with TrueView.

A few caveats:

• By default, TrueView is deactivated when the version of the game you are using to view the demo does not match the version of the game used to record the demo.

• Even with TrueView active, there may still be some differences between what you see in the demo and what the player originally saw (especially with slow-motion playback). For example, damage effects will have different timing during demo playback due to the way CPU and GPU work are pipelined.

• In addition to performing clientside prediction of the observed player, TrueView will also perform Damage Prediction on enemies, if Damage Prediction was used by the observed player at the time.

Additionally, we're shipping movement changes that we made available last week in a beta branch. All that and more and today's update!

\[ GAMEPLAY ]

• Fixed a case where air acceleration was clamped incorrectly while surfing.

• Fixed a case where slowly surfing up a ramp was handled incorrectly due to misidentification as a jump apex.

• Fix a bug causing "Delay Sniper Rifle Un-Scope after Shot" to be inconsistent.

\[ DEMO ]

• Added TrueView demo playback, which reconstructs the observed player's original experience more accurately by re-running client-side prediction.

• TrueView playback will show the effects of Damage Prediction, if it was enabled by the observed player at the time.

• TrueView does not reconstruct the precise timings of rendered frames, so some differences between the original player's experience and TrueView playback will remain, especially in very slow motion playback.  The player's frame at the time when the mouse was clicked, which is used for hit registration, is shown accurately to the nearest demo playback frame. However, reaction effects such as recoil, muzzle flash, blood splatter, and ragdoll are delayed while playing the game by one or two frames due to the way CPU and GPU work is pipelined, and will not appear at the same time during demo playback.

• TrueView demo playback might not work properly on old demos and is disabled by default if the playback client version does not match the client version when the demo was recorded. You can set cl_demo_predict 2 to override this.

• Fixed a bug causing third person models to not animate smoothly.

• Fixed a bug causing time to lurch forward by one tick when unpausing a demo.

\[ MISC ]

• Animation fixes for G3SG1 bolt.

• Fixed developer console scrollbar to accept mouse clicks.

\[ MISC ]

• Improved player movement prediction when colliding with other moving players.

• Added scope in/out sound prediction to play immediately for local player.

• Retake loadout cards will now randomly offer M4A1-S or M4A4 if player has both equipped in their CT loadout.

• Added Body Armor to 4v3, 4 Bad Guys Left, and Blind Fire cards.

• Added Dual Berettas to T Blind Fire card.

• Replaced Flashbang with HE Grenade on CT Enemy Loadout Card

• Fixed idle animations on CZ75-Auto, SSG 08, AUG, Galil AR.

• Performance improvements.

• Stability improvements.

• Improvements to animation fidelity during demo playback.

\[ GAMEPLAY ]

• Increased matchmaking party size for Retakes to allow 4 players in a party.

• Fixed a case where players joining Retakes round during freeze time could spawn at a wrong spawn point.

• Fixed bot manager logic to make room for players by first kicking dead bots and bots who are not controlled by a human.

\[ MISC ]

• Stability improvements.

\[ GAMEPLAY ]

• Adding Retakes as official game mode supporting Defusal Group Alpha and Defusal Group Delta maps on official matchmaking servers.

• Fixed Molotov and Smoke interaction logic in cases when multiple smokes are active in the map.

\[ MAPS ]

• Updated Golden to the latest version from Steam Community Workshop (Update Notes)

• Updated Palacio to the latest version from Steam Community Workshop (Update Notes)

• Updated Rooftop to the latest version from Steam Community Workshop (Update Notes)

Inferno

• Adjustments to top of Quad and under Balcony to improve visibility.

• Various optimizations.

\[ CONTRACTS ]

• Extended functionality of the "Trade Up Contract" to allow exchanging 5 items of Covert quality as follows:

  • 5 StatTrak™ Covert items can be exchanged for one StatTrak™ Knife from a collection of one of the items provided

  • 5 regular Covert items can be exchanged for one regular Knife item or one regular Gloves item from a collection of one of the items provided

\[ MISC ]

• Performance optimizations when the game is in the main menu and item inspect UI

• Fixed inventory item icons sometimes rendering in blurry state or not rendering

• Fixed several server-only sound events to not start multiple times

• Stability improvements

The bomb has been planted and you're running out of time. It's the return of retakes!

In this classic game mode, each round drops you in to a fast-paced 4v3 after-plant scenario. Select your loadout card each round, check the map to coordinate with your teammates, and use your resources wisely to defuse (or defend) the planted bomb.

The clock is ticking, what are you waiting for? Jump into a retakes server now!

\[ MISC ]

• Fixed a case of incorrect damage report data at the end of the rounds.

• Updated King Crasswater and Queen Ava stickers for clarity.

• Skinning fixes on Driver Gloves and Sport Gloves.

• Fixed a crash when playing back some demo files.

• Stability improvements.