A new debate has erupted in the Counter-Strike 2 community — experienced players have discovered a fundamental mechanic of how shots work in the game, already dubbed “Input Time Travel” (ITT). According to Reddit user r/GlobalOffensive, the author of a detailed technical breakdown, this feature stems from Valve’s implementation of the subtick system and causes every bullet in CS2 to effectively “travel back in time” by 1–2 frames before being registered.
What Happened: “Bullets from the Past”
In the classic shooting system familiar to CS:GO players, a bullet would be fired exactly at the moment the player clicked the mouse button, traveling toward where the crosshair was aimed at that instant. In CS2, it works differently: the game takes the timestamp of the click, finds the nearest previous frame, and uses that frame to determine the bullet’s trajectory.
This results in a “time gap” effect: what the player sees on screen (the current crosshair position) may differ from where the game thinks the crosshair was and where it will send the bullet. This is especially noticeable during quick flicks or when changing movement direction while shooting.
The Role of Subtick and Vsync
The researcher explains that with Vsync at 60Hz, the gap is two frames, while without Vsync it’s one frame. This was confirmed through a series of slow-motion recordings under different settings.
Valve likely introduced this subtick logic to reduce the delay between a mouse click and the moment the shot is fired. However, the consequences have been unexpected:
- shots sometimes “travel to the past,” missing despite visually precise aim;
- bullet spray trajectories reflect the crosshair’s old position, disrupting control;
- “death behind walls” situations occur, where the kill looks impossible from the victim’s perspective.
Comparison with CS:GO
In CS:GO, even with low FPS or high ping, the moment a shot was fired matched exactly what the player saw on screen, making gunplay more predictable and natural.
In CS2, however, a precise shot may be registered based on a frame that has already passed, creating the feeling that the weapon “exists in its own timeline.”
Examples and Experiments
In a series of AWP and Desert Eagle tests, the player demonstrated a typical problem:
- at the moment of the click, the mouse was already stopped on the opponent’s head;
- yet the bullet was registered based on the previous crosshair position — a miss;
- in CS:GO, the same situation would result in a hit.
The effect is noticeable even under perfect conditions (no Vsync, high FPS) — a one-frame delay can cost a shot in dynamic duels.
Community Reaction
The Reddit discussion on Input Time Travel gathered hundreds of comments and quickly became one of the hottest topics of the week.
Sir, a new doctor thesis proving the game is weird has hit the subreddit, joked one user.
Another added: “Taking bets on what happens next: Valve fixes it, ignores it, or proves him wrong tomorrow.”
- Some agreed with the findings, calling ITT a consequence of the subtick system itself: “To fix it they would need to rework the whole system from the ground up or remove it.”Others were skeptical: “This is not a bug, it’s how it’s supposed to work.”
- There was also some irony: “Devs out here breaking causality,” wrote one commenter. The debate has split the community between those who see ITT as a serious issue and those who view it as part of the game’s design.
Can It Be Fixed?
According to the discussion’s initiator, even without moving CS2 to 128 tick, gameplay could be greatly improved if Valve changed the subtick logic so that shots are registered in the “present frame” rather than the past. This would remove the disconnect between what the player sees and what the server calculates.
Valve has not officially commented on the finding, but some of the critical issues described in previous posts have already been fixed — giving the community hope for further changes.
The Input Time Travel problem is yet another reminder that in shooters, the feel of gameplay is built on milliseconds. And while Valve remains silent, players continue to gather evidence and urge the developers to bring bullets “back to the present.”
