Trusted Mode is the latest tool in Valve’s suite to prevent cheating in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. The new mode, which is now the default state CS:GO launches in, significantly limits the types of programs that can interact with the game while it’s running. The intent, of course, is to limit certain advanced cheats from getting access to game files, but Trusted Mode has already created conflicts with perfectly benign apps. OBS’s Game Capture mode, for instance, no longer works with CS:GO. You can still use Window Capture within OBS to record your gameplay, but that obviously means you’ll have to run the game in fullscreen windowed, or in other non-exclusive modes.
Valve, however, says that “your Trust score may be negatively affected” if you run CS:GO in that mode. You should also expect abrupt disconnects from matches until the game is relaunched in Trusted Mode. The new mode is not entirely unlike Valorant’s own anti-cheat solution. Although Valve’s tech is less pervasive, they both try to stop cheats by preventing their access to the game altogether, and end up screwing with unrelated programs.
