Valve has devised a way for players to kill time before they kill their enemies in Counter-Strike.
The latest patch includes a fully-functional tic-tac-toe board on Inferno—one of CS:GO’s most popular maps. In the terrorist’s spawn, players can shoot tiles and create either an “o” or an “x.”
The buy phase in CS:GO lasts 90 seconds in casual mode, and 20 seconds in competitive. This time is used to buy weapons, stock up on armor and utility, and strategize with your teammates. But after winning a round, there’s often time to spare.
The tic-tac-toe board is exclusive to Inferno and is unlikely to be making an appearance on other maps. Valve, though, has yet to mention this change, overlooking it entirely in the patch notes.
Excluding the squawking, and sometimes exploding, chickens, tic-tac-toe is Counter-Strike’s only minigame to date.
In addition, the latest patch included an update to player visibility across all maps and locations. A new Boost Player Contrast option was added to the video settings, improving player readability, and making characters stand out from the background. The B doors on De_Dust 2 were also flipped in ode to Counter-Strike 1.6.
The patch is now live and available to play across all regions.
