CSGO visibility update appears to reveal opponents through walls

Alan Bernal

The visibility update for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive brought a ‘Boost Player Contrast’ option to help people see player models in low contrast areas, though it also makes it possible to see opponents behind walls.

As far as the overall patch goes, players have been appreciating the subtle, yet present improvements to CSGO. But when Redditor ‘TimSchumi’ took a closer look at the new feature’s effects, they noticed there was quite a bit more visibility in-game.

Their clip shows a subtle but crucial glitch that lets eagle-eyed players make out the figure of a Global Offensive model behind an object.

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Although it’s not overtly noticeable, in a slow-paced and test tactical shooter like CS:GO, the action routinely slows to the point where players can be focused on the same wall for 10-20 seconds at a time.

These kinds of changes in the pixels are something that stand out like a sore thumb when a T is holding down a post-plant angle; just waiting for a CT to come around the corner.

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TimSchumi isn’t clear on a sure-fire way to recreate the bug, but they managed to do it at least once while they were testing out different methods saying that “it doesn’t always show up when watching the replay from the original clip.”

Finding a way to reproduce the bug would go a long way for the devs to create a solution to the problem, although some people already have an idea of what could be causing the strange effect.

“The only explanation I came up with: halo effect is applied (or meant to be) when the game assumes you have seen more than 50% of the enemy model,” user ‘TheStratum’ explained. “However this percent calculation goes wrong and halo is applied when you only see a little.”

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The consensus is that this bug is a bit too intricate to reproduce, so it shouldn’t create too many consistent problems.

With that said, some people have been able to reproduce it for learning purposes, so it could be something the CSGO devs patch out in case the wrong players stumble across a reproducible method.

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About The Author

Alan is a former staff writer for Dexerto based in Southern California who covered esports, internet culture, and the broader games/streaming industry. He is a CSUF Alum with a B.A. in Journalism. He's reported on sports medicine, emerging technology, and local community issues. Got a tip or want to talk?