Valve has released a Counter-Strike 2 update that encrypts chat in demo files, closing off the match logs that third-party sites had been scraping. PCGamesN reports the patch is live, and that the rest of it is largely given over to changes on Cache.
Valve's notes say chat is now encrypted in demo files under the same rules as CS:GO. In practice, PCGamesN reports, team conversations cannot be read at all during demo playback, and global chat is readable only when a demo is played back through the in-game watch UI.
The leaderboards the patch targets
The change follows the discovery in August that CS2 tracking tools could publicly display chat logs showing what players had typed in past matches. Sites including CS2tracker scanned the breadth of CS2 chat history and tallied how often individual players had used various offensive terms, then published the totals as a ranking.
PCGamesN reports that the exposed logs raised privacy concerns, and that once the rankings existed some players treated them as a challenge and set out to climb them by typing as much abuse as they could. With demo chat encrypted, that scraping route is closed.
Cache and spectator changes
On Cache, which returned to the map pool in overhauled form in April, Valve has fixed what it calls "various gaps" across the map and a wallbang spot on the B site. The update adds one competitive spawn point on the counter-terrorist side and several more for the terrorist team.
The patch also changes map scripting. There are new commands for player camera controls and a setting that determines whether observers see the interface as the player they are spectating sees it. Valve says it has fixed "several bugs" that could occur when switching between spectator targets.
PCGamesN reports the update is live now, and that beyond the chat encryption the bulk of it is made up of those Cache adjustments.