Does spaghetti code threaten to unravel CSGO? One redditor thinks so

An inquisitive redditor poured over Counter-Strike: Global Offensive’s item coding. The results were not positive.

Reddit user -ZooL- decided to search through the files of the popular first-person shooter. There, they uncovered instances of buggy code that caused various issues with the way items are implemented in the game. They shared those findings on the community subreddit r/GlobalOffensive

CSGO launched in 2012 and since then, Valve programmers have been building upon the game’s base code which has left fragments of outdated material in the game’s files.

According to -ZooL-, this can cause a variety of in-game issues. They go on to demonstrate the problems caused by this code, which includes miscategorization of the AUG’s scope and inventory issues with the Ballistic Shield. They also tie this to a bug in Danger Zone that resulted in molotov cocktails not working properly.

The redditor singles out a file labeled “items_game.txt” which contains problematic “spaghetti code.”

As it stands, CSGO is fully functional and offers a smooth experience to players. The trouble is that piling more and more code onto the game will eventually cause problems.

“I can understand that it’s underwhelming to work on existing spaghetti code and you have to deal with it by doing another layer of spaghetti but they can’t continue like that, at some point the bugs will become insane. Cleaning those issues will be a godsend for both their team and us,” -ZooL- said.

The redditor stresses that there shouldn’t be extra pressure on the CSGO development team and this isn’t a means of undermining their work. CSGO is on a global upswing in popularity and he stresses that this wouldn’t have been possible without the staff at Valve.

Still, fixing these coding issues offers short-term benefits for the modding community and server owners while preempting potential long-term issues.