CS2 Players Unbanned by Valve After Wave of False VAC Bans

Valve has confirmed that a fix is underway after the Counter-Strike 2 community reported in droves that a recent VAC ban wave enacted over the last day resulted in a ton of false bans. Many gamers were concerned, with many inventories packed with the best CS2 skins worth thousands that were suddenly worthless.

What Caused The False CS2 VAC Bans?

As of right now, it isn’t clear what caused the false VAC bans in CS2. In Valve’s official comment on the issue, the studio mentioned it was part of yesterday’s update to the game that caused the bans, although the specifics remain unclear. Prior to this, rumors were spreading about potential causes, including a recent update to NVIDIA drivers.

Around a month back, an update to AMD CS2 settings lead to VAC bans for those who used the company’s Anti-Lag+ technology, so there’s certainly precedent. In situations like this, it’s difficult to tell who is telling the truth. On this occasion however, the community outcry was too loud, and it was clear a huge mistake had been made.

Problems With VAC

At the start of CS2, VAC has been causing problems for Valve. Just recently, CS2 players were being banned for high DPI, in a bug that was consistently reproducible. The most recent iteration of VAC, VAC Live, was touted as a huge upgrade on CS:GO, with the system now stopping matches in progress when a cheater is detected. Even still, it’s no secret that Premier mode is filled with cheaters at high ELOs.

It’s clear that despite the upgrades made to VAC, there is a long way to go before it works as intended. FACEIT has already solved this problem with its intrusive anti-cheat, and Valve needs a similar solution to stop situations like this going forward.