Counter-Strike: Global Offensive has been a massive success for Valve since its release in 2012, and a recent update has given a real level playing field for players, no matter what side they are on.  There is a question of when the next update will travel down the pipeline, and here are the latest News and Rumors.

According to the Steam News, the latest update to Counter-Strike: Global Offensive was released on March 31^st.  The update was designed to contain "numerous fixes, particular to some key weapons for the competitive scene and to most of the maps used in the Active Duty map group". 

For example, there is a "slower sniping" feature so that players who use the AWP (Arctic Warfare Police) weapon, a sniper rifle of the Counter-Strike series.  The change allows players move much slower while being scoped in.  The other new feature was the "Tec-9 nerfs", a way to put the Tec-9 weapon in a position where it didn't constantly dominate the field so much.  The price of the M4A1 Silencer was increased by $100 to $3,200 to "align the weapon's price with its utility," which is another way the update was leveling the playing field. 

Another update was related to "running and gunning" which had previously made Terrorists too quick with movement speed and lack of tagging.  Increased tagging based on a weapon is able to again level the playing field and balance out opponents. 

Speaking again of leveling out the playing field, one of the classic Defuse mission maps, Train, has been pulled from the Active Duty group.  The reason was because it was "tremendously CT-sided and rarely being picked to be played in competitive games. The new train has been reworked and it has been promised to be easier to secure bombsite takes with, particularly at the outside site. With the advice of some pro-gamers apparently having been taken on board, hopes are high that the map can bring a new dynamic to the map pool in the pro scene."

For those not familiar with Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (also known as CS:GO), it is a first-person shooter game developed by Valve Corporation and Hidden Path Entertainment. Released in 2012, it is the fourth game of the Counter-Strike franchise, and it has received good reviews.  Gameplay is all about being in a Counter-Terrorist team or even a Terrorist team and complete objectives, or taking out the other team.  CS:GO is pretty popular with 6,275,365 unique players last month, according to the CS:GO blog. 

As far as the next update to CS:GO is concerned, there really hasn't been any word.  There isn't really any pattern to these updates, as CS:GO has had months go by without them on certain occasions.  However, thanks to the Steam Workshop, Valve has allowed CS:GO users to explore and download all kinds of new maps, skins, and custom gameplay created by the Counter-Strike community, so there is always something new. 

Counterstrike: Global Offensive is currently available on Steam, Windows, OS, Xbox Live Arcade, and the PlayStation Network with updates occurring constantly.