Valve Quietly Launches New VACNet Community Review System for CS2
Valve pushed a silent CS2 update that opens a new version of the community cheat review system to a limited number of players. A dedicated portal has appeared at counter-strike.net/vacnet, where invited players can watch demo clips of suspected cheaters in their browser and submit verdicts to help train VACNet's detection models.
How It Works
Selected players receive an invitation directly in CS2's main menu, visible in the top left corner. From there they authenticate their Steam account on the portal and begin reviewing clips. Each case asks reviewers to evaluate four specific cheat types: Aim Assist, Wallhack, Auto BHop, and Bot accounts. Verdicts come in three options: cheat present, insufficient evidence, or no cheat. Valve explicitly states that individual verdicts don't directly affect the reviewed player. The labels are used to train future VACNet models rather than trigger bans, and reviewers are asked to apply a high bar of certainty before choosing anything other than insufficient evidence.
Who Gets Access
Invites are going out to a very limited pool with no clear pattern yet identified, drawing comparisons to the early CS2 beta access wave. One confirmed case involved a player with a 16,000 Premier rating who had previously participated in CS:GO's Overwatch system, though Valve hasn't confirmed any criteria publicly. Players who receive access can invite one friend immediately, with additional friend invites unlocking after submitting a volume of verdicts.
What Valve Is Asking Reviewers Not to Do
Valve's portal warning is explicit: do not stream, record, or share footage from reviewed clips. The reasoning is straightforward. If cheat developers can see which behaviors are being flagged, they can adapt their software to evade detection. Keeping the clip content private is essential to the system working as intended.
Unlike the original CS:GO Overwatch system, no XP reward has been mentioned in the current invite. Whether that changes as the rollout expands remains to be seen. For now, it's a quiet beta test that could become one of the more meaningful additions to CS2's anti-cheat infrastructure this year.
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