Over the course of this year, PUBG has gone on to become the biggest game on Steam, even going as far as to dethrone Dota 2. It looks like this has caught Valve's attention, as the developers behind Counter-Strike: Global Offensive appear to be working on their own survival-style battle royale mode.

Through data mining the last ten CS:GO patches, various hints have been found. This includes references to things like ‘beacon spawn points', compound bows and even fist combat, something that has never been in Counter-Strike. As the latest Valve News Network video points out, there are also plenty of references to ‘survival' in these update files.

Other files point to adrenaline shots, sonar pulses and MK2 grenades. Many of these references paint the picture of a battle royale survival mode, as it is consistent with other games in the genre. These files first started appearing last year, so it is something that Valve has been mulling over for a while it seems.

One important note in the video is that there are now soundscape files to be found, which means there is likely a fully functioning, playable map floating around at Valve HQ.

Whether or not this leads anywhere remains to be seen though. It is possible that this is just Valve experimenting with new ideas that won't necessarily see the light of day. Hopefully we'll learn more in the new year.

KitGuru Says: Battle Royale style games have grown hugely successful this year. PUBG in particular has managed to boost Steam usage in China by a huge margin, so there is no doubt that Valve is going to be looking into ways it can jump in to the ring with its own version of Battle Royale. Whether or not Valve actually chooses to release this remains to be seen though.

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