CS2’s latest FPS ‘wallhack’ bug threatens to break the game

A Counter-Strike 2 professional has uncovered a nasty bug involving the game’s FPS counter where teams rushing together through maps can cause a very noticeable drop in frames, with opponents able to use the drop as a soft “wallhack.”

Ľuboš “HenkkyG” Ilko, a player for Czech squad eSuba, showed the FPS bug in a video on X (formerly Twitter) on Feb. 4. In the clip, which takes place on the map Ancient, HenkkyG stares at the wall where, across the map, the terrorist squad are rushing through spawn tunnel and towards the B bombsite. While nothing is actually seen by HenkkyG on his screen, his FPS counter heavily fluctuates as the T’s run through the water and up to B.

Starting the clip at over 700 FPS, the T’s rushing through the water—way out of sight and far away from being able to be heard—cause HenkkyG’s frames to drop significantly. As the T’s clear the water and push to the ramp, HenkkyG’s FPS counter reads 400, yet he hasn’t seen or heard a thing. Once the T players stop short of the ramp, his FPS climbs back to 700.

It’s critical information like this that can heavily impact the competitive integrity of ranked or even a professional CS2 match—and the problem may not even be limited to Ancient. Other maps, such as Anubis and Overpass, also contain bodies of water that can be interacted with, but unlike Ancient those locations featuring water are close enough to bombsites where CTs will hear or see the opposition at the same time.

Ancient, in the meantime, only has water at T spawn, which sees very little if any action outside the start of each round. It’s a criticism leveled at several maps over the years that feature extensive work in irrelevant parts of the map, such as the spawns on Nuke or the now-removed castle near T spawn on Cobblestone back in CS:GO.

The water has its competitive advantages, such as giving away louder sound cues whenever anyone walks into it or drops weapons or equipment into it, but now that it appears to break the game competitively, one wonders if it’s even necessary on Ancient at all.

Time will tell as to how Valve approaches the bug and whether the CS2 devs will try and find a fix or just outright remove the water altogether.