Valve has just unleashed the Halloween update for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, bringing forth a lot of special tweaks to the first-person shooter, not to mention changes to some of its mechanics and maps, like Mirage or Inferno.

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is currently Valve's second most popular game, trailing only the behemoth that is Dota 2 in terms of active players on the Steam digital distribution service. In order to keep fans connected to the first-person shooter, the studio has rolled out plenty of updates that modify existing mechanics while adding new ones.

The Halloween update for CS:GO is now live

In honor of the upcoming Halloween 2014 celebration, a special patch is now available for download and includes a wide array of changes to the actual first-person shooter, according to the official website.

First up, all characters, whether they're on the Terrorist or Counter-Terrorist sides, are wearing masks modeled after Payday 2, the cooperative shooter from Overkill Software, and after Team Fortress 2, the competitive shooter from Valve.

Just like last year, ghosts will now appear in the freeze frames shown on death, hovering over the remains of other fallen players.

As an even more special treat for fans, Valve has added a new mechanic to the chickens that can be seen roaming around certain maps. Upon death, a zombie chicken will crawl from the earth, making things even more hilarious than last year, when the chickens wore ghost costumes.

Plenty of other changes have also been made

It's not all fun and games in the new update for CS:GO, as Valve has also made a few changes to some of the issues reported by players when interacting with AI-controlled bots. These cover problems with grenade damage or the possibility of controlling said bots during the warmup stage.

New stickers and a special inventory inspect animation are also included in the patch.
Inferno and Mirage have been tweaked

Last but not least, Valve has also implemented some tweaks to two of the game's most popular maps – Inferno and Mirage.

Mirage fans should notice some changes to the B bombsite, as the skybox is bigger, the balcony is larger, while the wallbanging has been made more consistent. While it may seem like a small tweak, the potted plant on the Terrorist side of the mid area has been moved slightly, in order to provide better visibility.

Inferno players can no longer use some specific boost spots, while the collision model for the pillars in the ruins area has been updated. Other bugs have also been fixed, while "relaxing windchimes" can now be heard at the spawn spot for the Counter-Terrorists.

Check out the full changelog for the new Counter-Strike: Global Offensive update below by clicking the "Show Changelog" button. The patch is already available for download on Steam and weighs in at around 75MB.

Show Changelog

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

In game characters are now celebrating the spooky season with masks.

The spirits of fallen friends have again risen to haunt player death cameras (they show up in the world during death/freeze cameras in game).

When there’s no more room in Chicken Hell....

Added convar sv_holiday_mode (set to 0 on the server to disable holiday festivities).

MISC

Fixed radius damage from exploding HE grenade to not get applied to last bot's location where bot had been taken over by a human.

Bots can no longer be controlled by humans during warmup.

Updated inventory inspect animation to reveal both sides of knife blades.

Added six new offers community stickers.

MAPS

Mirage:

Fixed wallbang inconsistency through closed window in apartments near Bombsite B

Optimized placement of blue potted plant T side of mid

Made balcony at Bombsite B slightly larger

Opened up skybox from CT spawn to Bombsite B

Inferno:

Added relaxing windchimes to CT spawn

Fixed bugs where players could get stuck on roof overhangs

Fixed some textures with wrong surface properties

Removed some wacky boost spots

Updated collision model on pillars in Ruins

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