Valve widen VACNet labeling invites and credit players for better match quality

Valve have sent a new wave of invites to the VACNet labeling portal in Counter-Strike 2 and, for the first time, publicly tied recent improvements in match quality to the players who label clips for its anti-cheat model. The message comes after a week in which several well-known names reported far fewer cheaters in Premier.

Valve posted the announcement on the official Counter-Strike account on X on Thursday 00:04 CEST. The post says that “recent match quality improvements are the direct result” of the work done by labelers, described, tongue in cheek, as “heroic, handsome and beautiful”. Players who have been selected will see a VACNet icon in the game’s main menu.

Minutes later, Valve opened the door to everyone else: players who did not get an invite can ask for one through a direct message to the account.

What Valve did and did not say

The post is the closest Valve have come to confirming that something changed in CS2’s anti-cheat this autumn. It does not say what changed, when it changed or how much. Valve gave no figures for cheaters, bans or cancelled matches, and the word “improvements” is not tied to a specific update.

The release notes do not fill the gap either. The last line about VACNet in Valve’s patch notes dates back to 28 July, when Valve “fixed a bug that allowed malicious players to avoid being processed by VACnet”, the exploit we covered in July. The updates released on 8 October and 14 October dealt with reload times, sounds and the demo viewer, with no mention of anti-cheat.

What VACNet labeling is

VACNet is Valve’s machine learning system for spotting cheaters, which the company first presented at the Game Developers Conference in 2018. A model like that needs examples to learn from, and the labeling portal is where players provide them.

The portal appeared at counter-strike.net/vacnet in August without any mention in the release notes. The page is titled “CS2 Video Review” and tells visitors that they have “reached the Counter-Strike 2 VacNet labeling portal”. Invited players watch clips from Counter-Strike matches and answer questions about what they see.

The welcome text shown to labelers explains that their answers are not verdicts in the old sense:

The player you are watching will not be directly affected by your verdict. Rather, labels may be used to train future VACNet models. It is fine (and expected) that you will often select “Uncertain.” Please be certain if you make any other selection.

The same text asks labelers not to stream, record or share the clips, “to avoid helping malicious players identify ways to better hide their cheats”. The text was first published in August by the account Gabe Follower, together with a screenshot of the portal from a player who had been let in.

That is the key difference from Overwatch in CS:GO, where qualified players reviewed suspects and their verdicts could lead to bans. In CS2, Valve’s only official description of Overwatch is a 2024 release note about demo review by “trusted partners”. Pley explained that history in our guide to CS2 Overwatch. The new portal brings the community back into the loop, but as a source of training data for the model rather than as judges.

How to get access

Valve have not said how invites are chosen. This is how the process works, based on Valve’s own posts and the portal itself:

• Check the main menu. Selected players get a VACNet icon, a shield with a V, in the row of icons in the top left corner next to the power button.
• Open the portal. Click the icon in game, or go to counter-strike.net/vacnet and log in. The page says only invited players can take part.
• No icon? Send a direct message to @CounterStrike on X. Valve wrote that they will get you an invite.
• Label with care. Watch the clips with audio, answer the questions and pick “Uncertain” whenever you are not sure. Do not stream, record or share the clips.

Players noticed it first

Valve’s post follows a week of reports from players at the top of Premier, who said cheaters had all but disappeared from their games. On 7 October, the picture was the opposite. Analyst and commentator Mauisnake wrote that he had queued for “ONE (1) Premier game” during a 40 minute break between matches and met “2 obvious rage cheaters” at a 25,000 rating.

A week later, the tone had changed. Two-time Major winner Epitácio “TACO” de Melo told his followers on 13 October to make the most of Premier because the number of cheaters had “decreased immensely, at least so far” (translated from Portuguese). He was at a 30,000 rating, and his last ten games had been free of cheaters.

Mauisnake counted nine clean games in a row at a 25,000+ rating on 16 October. By Monday, the run had reached 13, and he added a note of caution about how Valve might have got there:

13 Premier games in a row with 0 cheaters, no one with 98-100 aim rating. Would love to know what it looks like elsewhere, but this wasn’t even happening in CS:GO for me. Valve may have overtuned VACLive from my gatherings, but I’ll take it for now. Well done, @CounterStrike.

These are individual experiences, not data, and Valve have not published numbers that confirm or reject them. Valve’s post is still the first sign from the developer that the change players felt was real and connected to VACNet.

Valve’s anti-cheat steps in 2026

Valve rarely explain anti-cheat work in detail, and most of what is public comes from short lines in the release notes. These are the documented steps this year:

The January fix was the second of its kind in two months, after a similar case of mistaken VAC bans was fixed on 8 December 2025.