CS2 Update (May 29, 2026)

CS2’s latest update focuses on the Major shop experience with new “Favorites” tools for stickers, smoother shopping and inspecting flows, and some under‑the‑hood improvements for spectators, shaders, and community content.

Major Sticker Store: New Favorites System and UI Tweaks

• Favorites / watch list for stickers: A new client setting cl_major_store_watch_list backs a full “Favorites” system in the Major sticker shop.

  • You can now bookmark individual stickers directly on item tiles via a star‑style toggle button.
  • Bookmarked items are stored in a comma‑separated list and persist via the new convar, so your favorites remain across sessions.

• Favorites banner in the Major store:

  • The Major store’s banner area now has a dedicated “FAVORITE STICKERS” section with a new header and carousel.
  • A hint panel (“Add stickers to Favorites for easy access”) appears when you have no favorites yet, encouraging players to start building a watch list.
  • A “See all” button on the Favorites banner switches the store content listing into a bookmarked‑only view, letting you browse just your starred stickers.

• Trending vs popular wording:

  • The “Top 40” banner and tooltip text have been renamed from “popular” to “TRENDING” (for example, “TOP 40 TRENDING STICKERS” and “One of top 40 trending stickers”).
  • This clarifies that the list is based on current demand, not a fixed, all‑time popularity metric.

• Improved banners behavior:

  • A new internal _UpdateVisiblePanel helper keeps the currently visible Major store view (single sticker, team view, banners, or content listing) in sync when data updates.
  • The popularity banner is updated together with the new Favorites banner when its panel is active.
  • The Favorites banner fades in/out using height and opacity transitions; once faded out and transparent it’s automatically hidden to avoid stray invisible hitboxes.

• Better filters & search integration with Favorites:

  • The “Clear all filters” actions now accept flags so they optionally preserve the Favorites view (useBookMarkList) instead of always resetting it.
  • When the content list is driven by Favorites (bookmark list mode), updates reuse scroll position unless explicitly told to scroll, making it feel less jumpy while managing filters.
  • The search flow now branches between:
    • Text search,
    • Favorites list (when bookmark mode is active), or
    • The full sticker set when no special mode is selected.

• Bookmarking directly from tiles and search results:

  • Store tiles now include a star bookmark button with separate “empty” and “filled” icons.
  • The state of that button is driven by _IsItemBookmarked, which checks the cl_major_store_watch_list convar.
  • Clicking the bookmark updates the underlying list via _UpdateBookmarkSetting, which also refreshes banners and, if active, the bookmark‑only content list.
  • Search result rows now wrap the icon and name in an inspect button and add the same bookmark control, so you can favorite stickers straight from search.

• Tile interaction improvements:

  • Hover behavior has been tightened so hidden tiles in carousels (used to fill pages up to 8 items) no longer play full hover animations or reveal controls; instead they show neutral placeholder visuals.
  • Cart quantity display and “in cart” chip behavior now explicitly skip hidden tiles.
  • The order of tile setup has been adjusted so that cart subscriptions and bookmark state are reliably applied after basic visuals are wired.

• Fullscreen inspect from the store:

  • Inspecting a sticker from the store now passes extra information (including the sticker def index and a callback handle) into the fullscreen inspect popup.
  • Once the inspect popup closes, its callback re‑invokes _UpdateVisiblePanel on the store, which should help keep tiles and banners in sync with any price or state changes that happened while inspecting.

Inspect Popup: Sticker Favorites in the Action Bar

• New bookmark button on inspect bar:

  • The inspect action bar layout adds a ToggleButton with empty and filled star images (id-sticker-bookmark).
  • Its visuals are styled as a dedicated Bookmark icon button, with the internal tickbox hidden and the filled star fading in when selected.

• Bookmark logic in inspect:

  • _ShowHideFavoriteBtn now runs during inspect action bar setup:
    • It reads sticker_def_index from the popup settings to know which sticker is being inspected.
    • If the item has no price or no def index, the bookmark is hidden.
    • Otherwise, it syncs the checked state with cl_major_store_watch_list and toggles the sticker’s presence in the list on click.
  • Mouseover shows the localized tooltip “Add or remove from Favorites” (major_store_bookmark_tooltip), and mouseout hides it.
  • When the inspect popup closes, the code now explicitly hides any lingering tooltip and invokes the provided callback to let the caller (for example, the Major store) update its UI.

• Why it matters:

  • This gives collectors and traders a single, consistent Favorites mechanic across both the Major shop and fullscreen sticker inspect, making it easier to track interesting stickers without manually noting down names or prices.

Shopping Cart and Pricing Display Adjustments

• Line‑item price handling in checkout:

  • The checkout popup now consistently stores the line item price in a local variable before writing it into UI variables, rather than re‑querying the cart multiple times.
  • The code also retrieves the current quantity per item when refreshing price displays.
  • This does not change gameplay behavior but should make UI pricing updates more robust and easier to maintain, especially around dynamic token prices and discounts.

• Real‑world price label styling:

  • Cart item layouts now include a dedicated cart-item__real-world-price label with typography and alignment tuned for right‑aligned display.
  • A .hidden class just fades it out instead of removing layout space, which may help prevent content from jumping when real‑world prices appear or disappear.
  • This suggests some regions or configurations may show local currency information alongside token prices in a cleaner way.

• Timer and label tweaks:

  • The main popup timer label’s height has been nudged to better match its font size, improving alignment in the checkout summary.

Major Hub and Tournament UI Updates

• Major hub localization cleanup:

  • The “Visit the Shop” button in the Major hub now pulls its label from a localization token #major_hub_visit_shop (“Visit The Shop”) instead of a hardcoded English string. This keeps the Major hub banner consistent with other localized UI elements.

• Pick’Em group stage logic:

  • The group stage predictions script now computes numBestOf1Rounds based on current tournament metadata:
    • For event IDs >= 26 and in certain sections (late Swiss stages), best‑of‑1s are treated as 0 rounds before best‑of‑3s.
    • Otherwise, it still assumes 2 best‑of‑1 wins or losses before advancing to a best‑of‑3.
  • This change updates the AddWin/AddLoss logic so that Pick’Em progression matches the actual event format more closely.

• Text changes in the Major store:

  • Several strings have been updated to align with the new Favorites system and clearer pricing:
    • “TOP 40 POPULAR STICKERS” → “TOP 40 TRENDING STICKERS”.
    • Hot trend tooltip now says “One of top 40 trending stickers”.
    • Favorites banner title: “FAVORITE STICKERS”.
    • Search and tooltip helpers for Favorites and real‑world price labels have been added.

Spectator and Visual FX Improvements

• Spectator flashbang opacity control:

  • A new client‑side convar r_spectator_flashbang_opacity (default 0.6, min 0.2, max 1.0) controls how strong flashbang overlays appear for spectators.
  • This should let casters, observers, and demo watchers adjust how blinding flashes are on their view without affecting actual players’ flash strength.

• Safer flashbang overlay sampling:

  • The flashbang overlay shader now clamps the sampled frame buffer color between 0 and 1 before applying gamma correction.
  • This reduces the chance of out‑of‑range values producing visual artifacts or overly bright flashes when the effect is composited.

• Environment and overlay shaders:

  • Environment and static overlay shaders have been updated to:
    • Respect which UV set is active before asserting that there’s a texture coordinate transform.
    • Support additional translucency textures on “Material1” (for example _trans maps used in blended or translucent materials).
    • Better organize “HasTexcoordTransform” attributes for tools and editor UIs when overlays share color channels.
  • These are technical changes but may translate into more reliable material editing in Hammer / material editors and slightly cleaner rendering in complex layered materials.

Map Icons and Visual Assets

• Ancient map screenshots refreshed:
  • New map icon screenshot textures have been added (and corresponding older entries re‑added/updated) for de_ancient and de_ancient_night across 360p, 720p, and 1080p resolutions.
  • The filenames suggest multiple variants per resolution (e.g. de_ancient_1 through de_ancient_4), implying a refreshed or expanded set of menu images.
  • Players may notice updated level preview thumbnails in the map selection UI, especially for Ancient and its night variant.

Tools, Icons, and Community Content

• New UI icon assets:

  • Several new SVG icons have been added under panorama/images/icons/ui:
    • bookmark_filled / bookmark_outline.
    • favorite_star_empty / favorite_star_filled.
  • These icons are now compiled into the main game pack and are used throughout the Major store and inspect UIs for the Favorites feature.

• De_sanctum community addon asset refresh:

  • The de_sanctum community addons manifest has seen heavy churn, with thousands of entries for models, particles, and materials updated.
  • Changed resources include:
    • Numerous explosion, impact, and weapon particles under particles/*.
    • Modular environment geometry like ivy, roofs, rock debris, and third‑party construction sets.
    • A wide range of cliff, concrete, decals, and blueprint materials.
  • This suggests the bundled de_sanctum addon is being iterated or cleaned up, which may improve visuals or performance for creators and servers that use this content.

• Internal tool updates:

  • Various *_strings.txt updates across engine, client, item editor, and tools binaries mostly reflect build housekeeping and minor diagnostics.
  • A few console helper messages for entity listing and physics constraints were adjusted on the server side, which may help advanced users and modders when debugging maps or entities.

Overall Impact

This update deepens the Major shop experience with a fully integrated Favorites system across the store, search, and inspect views, making it easier for collectors to track and revisit specific stickers. Spectators gain control over flashbang overlay strength, shaders get incremental stability and tooling improvements, and community content like de_sanctum sees another large asset pass. Most competitive gameplay elements remain untouched, while UI, viewing, and cosmetic workflows become smoother and more customizable.