If you haven't played CS:GO for 11 years, you may have had a hard time understanding what all the fuss was about when Valve announced Counter-Strike 2 this week. Sure, the maps are prettier in Source 2 and the smoke grenades seem to be more smoky (open in new tab), but it's basically the same game with some great upgrades. According to information gleaned from the ongoing closed testing of Counter-Strike 2, one of these upgrades may be a new way to stop cheaters before they ruin an entire match.

As Twitter user Aquarius (opens in new tab) noticed, Counter-Strike 2's code mentions a feature called VAC Live, which can cancel a match in progress if a cheater is detected. [This match was canceled by VAC Live.

Cool. If you've ever encountered a blatant cheater in your favorite shooter, you know how demoralizing it is to be stuck with them for the entire 30-minute match. Since you can't leave the scene or be punished, you have to play the entire match and hope that the anti-cheater will sort it out later. If accurate, VAC Live would provide quicker justice and save everyone time by canceling failed matches.

VAC Live seems to be taking a welcome cue from its most direct competitor: Valorant, Riot's in-house anti-cheat, Vanguard, which has featured the cancellation of matches in progress since day one. See the situation here. Notice how relieved the players are that the cheater allegations were instantly cleared and that the match ended early.

Like Vanguard, the VAC will not be able to catch all cheaters quickly enough to cancel a match in progress. Being such a popular streamer that developers are looking specifically to watch out for cheaters helps, but I would still expect to receive a suspend notice hours or days after the encounter.

I hope the bright red "CHEATER DETECTED" screen on the CS2 version of Valorant is equally dramatic and chilling.