Valve asking for fans’ help to fix notorious CSGO water bug

By Fariha Bhatti

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Oct 14, 2021

Reading time: 2 min

The long-standing Counter-Strike: Global Offensive audio bug might be patched up soon as Valve employees have started investigating the issue. 

Valve isn’t necessarily known for its community engagement or delivering hotfixes for game-breaking bugs. But this seems to be changing. A Valve employee DanB has requested community help to investigate the infamous water bug. 

CSGO has tons of bugs scattered across the maps, but few of those make any difference in competitive games. However, the water bug can be a nuisance in higher ELO games. Many casual players first reported it but only got the developer’s attention when professional players pointed it out upon new map Ancient’s release. 

In a Reddit post, DanB has asked for game demos from the members to understand the issue better. The developer would try to deliver a fix before the major, as it can be game-breaking on a higher level. Professional players, in particular, have found it to be a massive menace on the new map Ancient. 

Valve is working to fix the water bug on Ancient 

The map pool in CSGO mainly included summer-themed, dry maps. With the exception of Overpass and Inferno, no other map in competitive queues includes water as a crucial part of the game. However, the addition of Ancient steered the attention back to a long-standing bug that delivers audio from one side of the map to another. 

Players noticed that they could hear the enemy footsteps across the map when they stepped on the water surface. For example, on Overpass there’s water on B site and fountains. When enemies run on B site’s water, players could hear their footsteps all the way towards CT spawn fountains. Water throughout the map seems to share the surface, travelling audio from one similar element to another despite the distance.

This is a game-breaking bug as it can be exploited to gather intel on a higher level of play. Players can get a fair idea about enemies’ location with water footsteps scattered all over the map. Surprisingly, Valve has taken notice of this issue, requesting demos from the community members who’ve encountered the bug. 

Valve’s engagement with the community might have been limited in the past, but it seems to work with the players now to deliver necessary patches. Players are hopeful that their demos will help with Valve’s investigation to roll out a fix for the annoying water glitch in CSGO.