CS2’s public Deathmatch servers are quietly filling up with fake players that look like humans on the scoreboard but behave like bots in-game. A new community investigation claims this “botting epidemic” is happening in plain sight at the end of 2025 and raises serious questions over Valve’s anti-cheat efforts.
A new “fake player” epidemic in CS2
In a recent video titled “CS2: You Are Not Playing Against Real People”, creator 3kliksphilip plays 10 CS2 Deathmatch games to document how many opponents are actually automated accounts running on standard Steam profiles. These are not classic “BOT” slots added by the server, but fake players that appear as normal users on the scoreboard while behaving like low-level AI.
Across those 10 matches, at least half contained one or more of these suspicious accounts, with hostage maps acting like “magnets” that attract large clusters of bots in a single lobby. The creator describes it as “depressing” how easy it is to find them by simply queueing into popular Deathmatch map pools at the end of 2025.
The investigation highlights several telltale signs that these are automated accounts rather than humans. Many profiles feature anime avatars and non-Latin names, then move and aim in a way that resembles old-school Valve bots: shaky crosshair control, poor vertical tracking, random movement, and inconsistent shot selection. In some games they run aimlessly around the map, missing easy shots yet occasionally hitting difficult ones, which can make them blend into casual lobbies until closely inspected.
More worrying are the defensive behaviors that trigger when they are spectated. In one match, a suspected bot freezes the moment it is watched and then disconnects entirely, while other accounts repeatedly go still whenever the camera lands on them, only to resume moving once the spectator looks away. Some disconnects produce a recurring “error sending snapshot” console message, which the creator believes is linked to how these scripts interact with the server or anti-cheat checks.
Why players are doing this?
The video does not identify the exact creators of these bot networks, but it outlines likely motivations based on how they operate. Because they run on normal Steam accounts and remain active in public lobbies, the bots can quietly farm playtime, item drops, or other progression systems without a human ever needing to aim or move. The creator also speculates they could be used to probe or confuse CS2’s AI-driven cheat detection by behaving just human enough to blend in while still exploiting automated systems.
This is not framed as a tool to help real players fill empty servers, unlike Valve’s own labeled bots. Instead, these fake players exist to benefit whoever controls them, not the wider CS2 community, and they do so by occupying slots in lobbies that human players expect to be populated by real opponents.
Impact on Deathmatch and player skill, Valve’s Anti-cheat question looms
For some players, these bots may feel like extra targets to shoot at in a casual warmup mode, and the investigation admits they “didn’t do much to hamper the experience” in terms of raw difficulty. However, the creator argues that training against bots and cheaters undermines the skills that matter in real matches, because players learn to adapt to non-human movement, timing, and decision-making.
If Deathmatch becomes dominated by fake players, newcomers risk learning the wrong habits while veterans lose the organic mind games and social interactions that make multiplayer feel alive. The video also notes how genuine new players, with 2004-style mouse control, share servers with obvious bots and scripted cheaters, raising concerns over how welcoming the CS2 ecosystem is for the next generation of Counter-Strike fans.
The investigation repeatedly calls out how visible this problem is and questions why such obvious automation has not been stamped out if Valve’s AI systems are as powerful as advertised. When bots can freeze on command, disconnect on spectate, and still operate at scale in public Deathmatch, it “makes a mockery” of the idea that subtle cheaters are being consistently caught behind the scenes, the creator suggests.
He characterizes the situation as a “botting epidemic in full view of anyone who takes the time to look for it” and even links it to “dead internet theory”, where a growing share of online activity is driven by non-human actors. The video ends with a plea for Valve to “do something special” about the issue, warning that if fake players are tolerated in such an obvious form, there is little reason to believe that more sophisticated cheaters are being effectively controlled.