Patch notes of Steam update #177, released on August 7th, 2026:
Maps
- c1a1a
- Fixed the Freeman's locker room door getting stuck
- c2a5a
- Fixed Apache helicopter touching the death trigger on spawn
- c2a5g
- Fixed mortar shells hitting the sky from above
Game Modes
- Reworked the default team selection (the 'Auto Join' option)
- Battle Royale
- Restored the end round message shown if multiple players are still in the zone by the end of the overtime period (regression since pre-Steam patch 22)
- Hunted
- Team player count balancing tweaks
- Sneak vs. Terrorists
- Fixed Sneaks being able to report dead bodies
Player Models
- Fixed HL2 Citizen using Fatass's model properties
- Changed the existing TFC Sniper's token from tfc_sniper to tfc_sniper_hd
NPCs
- Updated non-JB NPCs to ignore players hiding in a box
- Upgraded flash lights for Combine scanners
- Fixed batteries dropped by destroyed Combine scanners couldn't be picked up
- Updated Metrocops to support empty SetPoliceGoal input calls
Weapons
- Fixed Explosive Tripmines not playing their dedicated sound cue when tripped
- Fixed Friction grenades not dealing periodic damage after a direct hit (regression since pre-Steam patch 638)
- Fixed removing Dubstep Gun could leave its lights active
User Interface
- Added visual cues to the team selection panel for inaccessible teams
- Restored textual headshot notifications shown when performing a headshot kill or dying to one
- Fixed attempting to display a hint panel resulting in an infinite loop leading to a crash
- Fixed the Explosive tripmines pickup hint not showing in SvT at all
- Fixed the Pump shotgun alt fire hint showing when the alt fire mode is disabled (ie in Hunted)
- Fixed missing use of the localization token for the 'Random' player model
- Fixed kill notifications having no weapon names/icons during the Midas Touch special BR round
- Idle players will now have a designated icon shown by their name on the scoreboard
- Slighly tweaked the appearance of the damage numbers
- Debug overlays will now smoothly follow entities they're created for
- Rewinding demo playbacks will now remove dangling debug overlays
- Fixed incorrectly used color markers in various localized strings
- Updated Czech and Finnish localizations
Effects
- Fixed certain shadows showing as distorted for objects mistakenly treated as not within view (such as skybox or mirrors)
- Fixed HDR lighting being always enabled on Linux, even on maps with LDR lighting only
VScript
- Fixed the VScript language field from the map properties being ignored at the server side
Miscellaneous
- Mimalloc related tweaks and optimizations
- Fixed client crash when saving the game instructor lessons progress
- Fixed client crash due to an excessive amount of scenes to render in one frame
- Fixed very heavy props starting to glitch when pushed or kicked
- Fixed team assigned objects (ie security cameras) could be damaged by players from the same team
- Fixed track trains set to loop around stop rotating after the first loop
- Fixed per model voice overrides not working for the weapons reloading voice lines
- Removed use of the 'settings' section from the mapadd files shipped with the game
- Fixed sv_maxspeed convar not being used at all
- Replaced sv_showhitboxes convar with new ent_hitboxes cheat command
- Updated jb_admin_* commands targeting players to include @random and @giants groups, plus updated all groups to support reverse selection via preceding ! (ex: jb_admin_slap @!me slaps everyone but you)
SDK tools
- Added 'Max health bonus' and 'Max armor bonus' fields to jb_pickup_health and jb_pickup_armor respectively, allowing them to grant health/armor beyond the standard limits
- Commentary editor
- Restored missing layout files
- Fixed crash on exit
- faceposer
- Fixed memory leaks when resampling WAV sounds in PCM format
- hlmv
- Fixed shadows not rendering
- studiomdl
- Fixed the invalid syntax error triggering when processing a valid jigglebones block (regression since patch 168.1)
- vlocalize
- Implemented text color markers processor