Some Counter-Strike: Global Offensive players in Asia have been unable to access the Retakes mode for over a month as the game’s Tokyo servers are swarmed by bots. Players attempting to join Retakes matches on CS:GO’s Tokyo servers have reported lobbies full of bots that instantly kick out human players looking to enjoy a round of Valve’s popular shooter.
Why can’t players join CS:GO lobbies?
As initially reported by Dot Esports, CS:GO players in Asia have been facing significant problems when attempting to join Retakes matches on the game’s Tokyo servers. According to a thread on r/GlobalOffensive by Redditor Japesthetank, CS:GO’s Tokyo servers have been swarmed by bots that instantly kick and ban human players attempting to join matches. This has left players looking to hop into Retakes rounds in Valve’s free-to-play shooter unable to join, as bot farms fill the mode’s servers nearly as soon as they are spun up.
Retakes mode switches up the traditional flow of gameplay in CS:GO, starting off each match with Terrorist players situated at a bombsite with an already-planted bomb. According to Japesthetank’s post, the only way many players have been able to join rounds of the casual-focused game mode is by joining with a pre-made group of 3 or more and causing a new server to be spun up. This infestation of malicious bots is just one of many problems with CS:GO that players of the popular Valve shooter have been faced with in recent months.
A potential solution for dealing with the onslaught of bots in Retakes mode was offered by a Valve employee responding to the Reddit post. Players who find themselves being kicked and banned by bots when attempting to join Retakes mode are instructed to e-mail Valve with screenshots of the scoreboard along with links to profiles involved in the server boosting. The recent onslaught of bots in Retakes mode is likely the result of malicious players attempting to farm potentially lucrative loot boxes ahead of the planned launch of CS:GO 2 later this year.
