"Counter Strike: Global Offensive" ("CS: GO") might be trying to take a page out of "Player Unknown's Battlegrounds" ("PUBG") playbook.
Rumors of the multiplayer shooting game attempting to adopt a battle royal style of play surfaced when a video published by the YouTube channel Valve News Network showed several references to "PUBG" while reviewing previous patches.
According to the video, references to several elements currently present in "PUBG" such as compound bows, parachutes, mk2 grenades and sonar pulses have been uncovered. These and many others — including a huge island map — have been found inside the patch codes but never manifested in the actual game.
An investigation to a more recent patch revealed more weapons that are more suitable for a survival type environment.
This discovery led players to speculate that Valve might be trying to place all these elements little by little to install a bigger, more complete patch that would ultimately add a survival mode to the current existing game options in "CS: GO."
It should be no surprise that Valve would try to replicate the components of "PUBG" that contributed to its massive worldwide success.
In August 2017, "PUBG" knocked off "CS: GO" as the most played game in Steam with 877,844 players compared to "CS GO's 850,845." The game has occasionally beaten "Defense of the Ancients 2" ("DOTA 2") a number of times as well, although it has yet to come close to "DOTA 2's" all-time high of 1,291,328 players.
The surge in number can be attributed to the Chinese gaming community playing the title on Steam.
Brendan "PlayerUnknown" Greene, the creator of "PUBG," published a tweet thanking players for the continued support.
While Valve continues to make video game sleuths guess what their intentions are for these discoveries, it should be taken with a grain of salt since Valve has a history placing materials not currently related to their patches with no apparent impact on the game.
Still, a battle royal mode for "CS: GO" would be a great idea.
