It appears that another potentially game-breaking Counter-Strike 22 bug has appeared in the Major RMR qualifiers, this time involving invisible players. After the whole fiasco over the exploited team-switch menus, the invisible player bug is just another in the sea of CS2 technical issues plaguing matchmaking and tournaments alike.
On Jan. 14, former CS:GO pro Kory “SEMPHIS” Friesen, who now coaches North American squad Nouns Esports, pointed out that a particular bug on Nuke cost his team a round in the Major RMR qualifiers. He posted a screenshot on X (formerly Twitter) showing one of his teammates holding from CT Hell towards the outer T red box—but no one appeared. In actuality, there was a T-side player there, and they could see the CT clearly as day. The CT ought to have seen them as well, but a strange rendering bug in CS2 simply decided not to show the T player at all.
A community member followed up on Jan. 14, showing the bug in action and proving it can be recreated. There is currently no explanation as to why the bug happens, but another video from dataminer ThourCS2 on Twitter may indicate there’s something wrong with how the game perceives the AWP zoom. Whether or not the bug has to do with Nuke itself is unclear and will likely remain so until Valve explains it. The mentioned video showing the bug first appeared in November of 2023—nearly three months prior to the qualifiers, and Valve still hasn’t fixed it.
The Major RMR qualifiers this year have been marred with trouble, particularly of the technical and cheating nature. Just this week, a team was accused of cheating by exploiting a team-switch menu screen that unintendedly gives off vital information that can change the course of a round or a match.
Paired with all the issues that have beset CS2 as Valve continues trying to fix all the game’s bugs and glitches, the future certainly doesn’t look bright for the leading FPS. Here’s hoping Valve gets to work on squashing these bugs before the RMRs—or even the Major itself—become affected.
