About the data

CS Updates tracks every Counter-Strike 2 update that Valve has published release notes for, and turns them into a timeline and simple statistics: which months, weekdays and hours patches usually land.

Source

The data comes from Valve’s own CS2 update feed on Steam – the same feed that powers counter-strike.net/news/updates. Every update in the log links to its patch notes on Steam.

What counts as an update

• One update = one release notes post. Two posts on the same day count as two updates.
• Since launch on September 27, 2023. Posts from the Limited Test (March–September 2023) are hidden by default, but you can include them on the start page.
• Not included: beta and pre-release branches, CS:GO patch notes posted during the Limited Test, Steam announcements that are not CS2 patches, and plain news posts.
• Major updates are the big, named releases (like an operation or a new case). They are marked when Valve announced a named update within 15 minutes of the release notes.

Time zones

Valve is based in Bellevue near Seattle, so the default is Valve time (US Pacific). Switch to your time on the start page to see when patches land where you are – the weekday often changes, since many patches go out in the afternoon in Seattle.

The time shown is when the patch notes were posted, which is usually when the update goes live.

Monthly average

Counting patches per month favours the months that have simply occurred more often since launch. The average per year divides each month’s total by how many times that month has passed in the period, with partial months counted as fractions.

Headings

The chart of what changes most is based on the headings in each set of patch notes, such as [ MAPS ] or [ GAMEPLAY ]. Similar headings are merged – for example AUDIO into SOUND and HUD into UI.