A new CSGO operation may be coming after new code changes

M Alzamora Published 11/10/2020

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive’s new operations have traditionally arrived after Valve cleans its code, and someone on the CSGO development team is doing just that right now.

Before adding new things, Valve has a habit of cleaning up what’s old. Normally, changes to CSGO’s non-English languages are something the CSGO team does regularly. Every update contains several of these, many contributed by community members who send translations of item descriptions and game warnings to Valve directly. But the past several updates have contained many translations updates. They’ve covered the majority of CSGO’s languages, and filled in many missing item descriptions and translations that hadn’t been covered.

This is good news for CSGO fans. While the translation updates that happen after patches are typical and consistent, large efforts to complete it usually precede something bigger on the horizon. From September to November 2019, Steam.db recorded many of these changes in its database. Every CSGO player knows the next part of the story. When Shattered Web released in November, CSGO’s ninth operation fit into a neat and tidy spot prepared for it by the men and women that work on the inside of CSGO’s hefty codebase.

CSGO’s fall code cleanup might come before next operation

That’s not all. As WIN.gg has previously noted, CSGO has stuck to its update schedule from 2019 all the way through 2020, even though many companies have struggled to finish games. For example, both Cyberpunk 2077 and World of Warcraft’s Shadowlands expansion were delayed by their respective studios. Valve, however, is relentless. Since January, Valve has created new features for both developers and players on the Steam client, updated classic games like Team Fortress 2 and the original Counter-Strike, and added big-name publishers and subscription services like EA Play.

CSGO’s latest updates have included something that seems unimportant but actually hints at future additions to the game. Each line of code is numbered, and when code is changed, it usually stays on the same line as in the example above, while new code is added to its own line. Developers use a blank line like a paragraph break, but these are less common. Adding them between snippets of code that are directly related is like splitting up a paragraph between every word.

In the past, these blanks have acted like placeholders, saving room for where more code will go in the future. As the rest of Valve’s games have been updated recently, it’s likely CSGO will see its annual Halloween event soon. But Valve could also be using this time between events to tody up CSGO for the next CSGO operation, so if players see another case drop in October, signs look good that Valve is on pace for another November operation for CSGO.

M Alzamora

About M Alzamora

There are few things that writer M Alzamora loves more in life than Pokemon. And there are even fewer things that she loves more than her favorite Pokemon, Eevee. But M’s appreciation for gaming isn’t just limited to Nintendo’s famous pocket monsters. She’s interested in every type of game across every genre of gaming, and she has the credentials to prove it. M’s work has also been seen on Working Classicists and gaming sites.

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