Former Valve dev reveals CS almost did Deadlock’s anti-cheat trick first

Valve added a fun new trick to its Deadlock anti-cheat that turned hackers into frogs instead of kicking them and apparently, the feature was intended to come to Counter-Strike, according to a former dev.

Deadlock has seemingly become Valve’s favorite project, at least according to Counter-Strike players, as the developer has been rolling out new updates, features, and characters at a rapid pace.

The most recent update rolled out a new anti-cheat feature that lets the lobby with a detected cheater choose to either immediately ban them to end the game or turn them into a frog for the rest of the match.

A former developer from Valve, Burton Johnsey, revealed on social media shortly after the update rolled out that this was an idea that has been cooking at the company for a long time and was originally meant for Counter-Strike.

“Holy crap, they finally built codename ‘FU Surprise Mode’?! When I worked on VAC, Rich and I designed this for CS but the cheater was a chicken,” Johnsey, who worked at Valve in 2016, said.

Chickens are iconic in CS as its various maps are littered with them and they don’t really do much outside of occasionally blocking doors, or exploding in a ball of feathers when shot.

The tiny animals would have made for the perfect punishment for hackers in the Valve FPS, forcing them to stick around in the lobby and do nothing but walk around. However, it seems like the developer wanted to add it to the yet-to-be-released title instead.

CS2 players have been leveling complaints of feeling left out in the cold by Valve as it works on Deadlock and its ever-expanding player base, instead of its other FPS title. And, this fun anti-cheat rollout might just feel like another slap in the face.