Valve has released a new update for Counter-Strike 2 aimed at improving gameplay and interface, as well as fixing bugs affecting the game's balance.

In Casual mode, players will now receive an additional XP point for each round in which they damage opponents. A new server rule "sv_vote_to_changelevel_rndmin" has also been introduced, which controls the time and number of rounds during which voting for map changes is possible.

On official servers in Casual mode, map change voting is now only allowed at the end of a match or in the first round. In Deathmatch and Arms Race modes, voting is only possible at the end of the match or during the first minute of the game.

Additionally, the vertical lift of a player when his teammate boosts him on his head has been restricted, preventing such maneuvers from being used in the game. Players asked for this bug to be fixed a year ago, but Valve finally heard the players and fixed it.

Dead players are now prohibited from picking up weapons from the ground, and the buy menu automatically closes when the team change menu is opened. Another new feature was an increase in the completed objectives counter in the match stats when rescuing a hostage.

The game's interface has also received improvements. The readability of the damage report after a round has been improved, and the highlighting of targets for observers has become more visible. Player names are now visible on the mini-table when it is expanded, improving player tracking during matches.

The dataminers also discovered that keychains are likely to appear in the game, as they added the appropriate lines to the game's code.

The maps "Mills" and "Assembly" have been updated to the latest versions from Community Workshop, which brings fresh elements and improved dynamics to these popular maps. The size of the update is 720.8 MB.