The battle royale genre has been booming this year especially with "PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds" (PUBG) taking the spotlight in first-person shooter (FPS) games. Developer Valve's own first-person shooter "Counter Strike: Global Offensive" (CS:GO) seems to be adapting to the trend, as they seem to have their own battle royale mode.
This much was revealed reveal by leaks from patch notes that were shared by YouTube channel Valve News Network. Apparently, there were hidden codes in the patches called "survival" and "survival_island" back in the May and October 2016 patches, respectively. However, these did not really give much information, and "PUBG," and thus the battle royale genre, was not much of a thing yet during this time either.
Then came the June update this year. The 2017 mid-year patch came with codes for medkits, drones, supply crates, and a display of players and time left. There were also sound files found with names like "island.outside.forest" and "island.inside.house." That said, with all the clues mentioned and the fact that most gamers would know of "PUBG," it definitely seems like "CS:GO" has its own version of a battle royale mode.
It might not be surprising to see Valve creating a battle royale mode. With the rise of "PUBG," which recently got its official release, there came also a bunch of other survival games. One of these is "Fortnite," which also has a huge player base. In fact, there are now a lot of similar games to "PUBG" that Brendan "PlayerUnknown" Greene has begun to push for a better security on their IP to protect them from games that directly copy features from the game.
As for "CS:GO", there has not been many updates since the reveal, let alone a release date for this possible new mode. It will be interesting to see how Valve will incorporate unique features to their own version of the battle royale mode.
