On October 13, Valve shipped out a new Counter-Strike 2 update to the game’s beta depot, bringing a series of changes to defusing that will heavily impact how players choose to fake tap the bomb moving forward.
The pre-release update, which is currently available to try out in the beta depot “1.41.1.3-rc1,” implements the following changes to defusing:
- Defusing C4 lowers the viewmodel weapon.
- Players can no longer scope when defusing.
- Players cannot fire their weapon for 150ms upon exiting the defuse.
Note that these changes haven’t been launched in the live servers as of yet. It appears Valve is testing the new defuse mechanics to see how they affect the overall pacing of post-plant situations and player decision-making before pushing them to the main game.
Early feedback from testers indicates that these adjustments are making fake taps a lot riskier, as players now experience a noticeable delay before they can engage opponents after exiting a defuse, adding a new layer of tension to post-plant encounters.
Additionally, being unable to scope in post-plant further removes a layer of deception that CTs could use, preventing them from using scope sounds to fake presence or mislead Ts during post-plants.
Alongside these bomb defusal changes, the latest CS2 beta branch update also brings with it a number of other crucial changes to the title. Fans can check out the finer details of the update by reading the official release notes.