Even Counter-Strike's devs called this wonder-bug the 'Smooth Criminal' before they had to beat it

News
By published

Hee hee!

The CS logo with a Michael Jackson esque figure.
(Image credit: Valve)

"Release notes for today are up" began the fairly typical message from the Counter-Strike 2 dev team, before things take a turn: "Shamone." The world's greatest competitive shooter has in recent days been delighting players with a bug that has been christened the "Smooth Criminal", after Michael Jackson's dance moves that accompany the song of the same name, and feature exaggerated leaning postures. In-game players have been strafing and, thanks to this glitch, would sometimes appear to glide with the top half of their body leaning out in an odd manner: no doubt a thriller for them, but plain bad and dangerous for those on the receiving end.

Here are a few examples of the bug in action, which of course players have played the song and various effects over:

bro thinks he's Michael Jackson from r/counterstrike

There have also been some community tributes, such as the talented u/eliasdsdf playing along to Smooth Criminal by shooting the bells on Inferno with a silenced rifle. This thing was both very funny, and obviously a bit of an issue. Valve has quickly responded with both an update that has "fixed the "Smooth Criminal" foot pinning bug", and a new banner for the game that features a leaning Jackson-style silhouette. In response to a user saying the bug would be missed, the CS2 account responded "the banner stays".

The full patch notes follow:

[ GAMEPLAY ]

  • When a server disagrees about a player's loadout, such as when a match starts during a patch, the buy menu will now reflect the server-authoritative loadout
  • Fixed a case where players could clip through ceilings
  • Made adjustments to character shaders to improve player visibility

[ ANIMATION ]

  • Fixed the "Smooth Criminal" foot pinning bug
  • Adjusted team select and team intro knife animations to work with Shadow Daggers

[ MAPS ]

  • Various bug fixes and tweaks to Inferno, Mirage, Nuke, Overpass, and Vertigo

[ MISC ]

  • Added "Player Color" option to "HUD Color" setting that will make the HUD match your or your spectator target's player color in competitive modes
  • Changed "Use Player Colors on Team ID" default to "Yes"
  • Added "Large Player Count" setting to replace player avatars with team player count in the mini-scoreboard during the active portion of rounds
  • Fixed a bug where graffiti changes mid-match were delayed
  • Various bug fixes and tweaks to weapon finishes and stickers

[ WORKSHOP TOOLS ]

  • New Screenshot button - captures a screenshot of the game window and saves a .png file to disk. Using "Inspect" with the gray or green backgrounds saves the .png with the UI elements hidden and a transparent background
  • Added Inferno and Ancient preview maps (workshop_preview_inferno and workshop_preview_ancient)
  • Workshop Item Editor - Integrated help system contains detailed guides when you see (More Help: Shift+F1) in the tool tip. These detailed guides contain important information about PBR color ranges, wear/durability masking alpha values, and much more
TOPICS
Rich Stanton
Rich Stanton
Senior Editor

Rich is a games journalist with 15 years' experience, beginning his career on Edge magazine before working for a wide range of outlets, including Ars Technica, Eurogamer, GamesRadar+, Gamespot, the Guardian, IGN, the New Statesman, Polygon, and Vice. He was the editor of Kotaku UK, the UK arm of Kotaku, for three years before joining PC Gamer. He is the author of a Brief History of Video Games, a full history of the medium, which the Midwest Book Review described as "[a] must-read for serious minded game historians and curious video game connoisseurs alike."

Read more
A Stalker, posing.
'Massive' Stalker 2 patch adds A-life updates and 1,700 other fixes to GSC's survival shooter, so many you'll need to go on a little quest to read them all
A smiling man in military fatigues
Get in here, stalker: Stalker 2’s Patch 1.3 is here with a whopping 1,200 fixes
Assassin's Creed Shadows immersive mode - Naoe holding a tanto in her hand as two guards fall to the ground behind her.
Assassin's Creed Shadows' first hotfix addresses stability issues and a photo mode crash
Vindicta wearing a clown mask
Deadlock's latest update makes a bunch of hero changes, including one suggested by a player who got laughed at for raising the idea
CS 1.6 remade in CS: Legacy.
A gorgeous ground-up remake of Counter-Strike 1.6 is on its way to Steam, and one of the game's original creators says 'it really gives me old vibes'
Monster Hunter Wilds palico
The next Monster Hunter Wilds update is set to launch on March 10 and will ensure that when you chop off monster parts, the right monster parts get chopped off
Latest in FPS
Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Ogryn
Warhammer 40,000: Darktide adds a psychic horde murderzone mode and makes Ogryns even smashier
Starfield's companion robot giving a thumbs-up
Former Bethesda dev who quit Starfield to go solo says it's 'much less stressful as an indie' without daily meetings or 'office politics': it's 'very refreshing to just care about the game'
A crew of prospectors in Wildgate, featuring a robot, a rabbit man, and a small aquatic creature in a combination mech/aquarium.
Blizzard co-founder Mike Morhaime's new company is putting Sea of Thieves-style shenanigans in space with a new crew-based shooter
Team Fortress Spy being shocked
An FPS studio pulled its game from Steam after it got caught linking to malware disguised as a demo, but the dev insists it was actually the victim of a labyrinthine conspiracy
Neighbors Suburban Warfare screenshot a child aims a slingshot at a man from across a cul-de-sac.
A beta of backyard FPS Neighbors: Suburban Warfare is out now, and the balance discussion is hysterical: nerf trash can lids and children
Fragpunk
Somebody finally figured out casual Counter-Strike
Latest in News
Lara Croft Unified Art
Tomb Raider developer Crystal Dynamics lays off 17 employees 'to better align our current business needs and the studio's future success'
A long bendy arm stealing money from people in a subway car
'You're a very long arm. You steal things. It's a comedy game,' explains developer of comedy game where you steal things with a very long arm
The heroes are attacked by monsters
Pillars of Eternity is getting turn-based combat to mark its 10th anniversary, and that means PC Gamer editors will soon be arguing about combat mechanics again
Image of Ronaldo from Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves trailer
It doesn't really make sense that soccer star Ronaldo is now a Fatal Fury character, but if you follow the money you can see how it happened
Junah beginning a battle in Metaphor: ReFantazio.
Today's RPG fans are 'very sensitive to feeling like they wasted time' when they die, says Metaphor: ReFantazio battle planner—but Atlus still made combat hard anyway
Image of Cersei Lanniser from Game of Thrones: Kingsroad Steam early access trailer
A new Game of Thrones RPG is coming to Steam today with a cast of 'familiar faces,' which is good because it's really the only way to tell it's a GoT game at all
More about fps
Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Ogryn

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide adds a psychic horde murderzone mode and makes Ogryns even smashier
Weapons from Counter-Strike 2

Five Ways to Get the Most Out of Your Counter-Strike 2 Inventory
Lara Croft Unified Art

Tomb Raider developer Crystal Dynamics lays off 17 employees 'to better align our current business needs and the studio's future success'
See more latest
Most Popular
Lara Croft Unified Art
Tomb Raider developer Crystal Dynamics lays off 17 employees 'to better align our current business needs and the studio's future success'
A long bendy arm stealing money from people in a subway car
'You're a very long arm. You steal things. It's a comedy game,' explains developer of comedy game where you steal things with a very long arm
The heroes are attacked by monsters
Pillars of Eternity is getting turn-based combat to mark its 10th anniversary, and that means PC Gamer editors will soon be arguing about combat mechanics again
Image of Ronaldo from Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves trailer
It doesn't really make sense that soccer star Ronaldo is now a Fatal Fury character, but if you follow the money you can see how it happened
Junah beginning a battle in Metaphor: ReFantazio.
Today's RPG fans are 'very sensitive to feeling like they wasted time' when they die, says Metaphor: ReFantazio battle planner—but Atlus still made combat hard anyway
Image of Cersei Lanniser from Game of Thrones: Kingsroad Steam early access trailer
A new Game of Thrones RPG is coming to Steam today with a cast of 'familiar faces,' which is good because it's really the only way to tell it's a GoT game at all
The new Prime Asset featured in the upcoming update for the Outlast Trials.
The Outlast Trials puts its already paranoid players under surveillance for a time-limited story event
A Viera looking confused in Final Fantasy 14.
Old armor continues to fall victim to Final Fantasy 14's bizarre two-channel dye system, unless you're super into changing the colour of teeny-tiny eyelets: 'Why even bother at this point?'
Otter AI Meeting Agent
As if your work meetings weren't already fun enough, now Otter has a new all-hearing AI agent that remembers everything anyone has said and can join in the discussion
Starfield: Shattered Space
By the time Bethesda was on Starfield, you'd 'basically get in trouble' for breaking schedule, says former dev: 'A lot of the great stuff within Skyrim came from having the freedom to do what you want'