FACEIT’s ruling has sparked a lively discussion in the Counter-Strike community. Starting from November 25, 2025, all platform players will be required to turn on TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot to play on the platform. Yes, you heard it right: these security measures will no longer be bypassed if one wants to play.
What does it mean for an average gamer? FACEIT reports that almost 95% of players have at least these features activated at the moment. That’s almost the entire player base covered, but what about the other 5%? So they will all have to do a lot of things before the sneeze of the 2025 deadline.
The announcement quickly gained attention on social media where users voiced their opinions quite actively. This was in a way mixed with the usual community drama. One user, @Alex_efimik raised a common issue: “If secure boot is on my MSI card, but I am still getting an error, what then?” This emphasizes the technical issues that some players may have to face when they want to follow the new rules.
Meanwhile, the still fresh talks were turned toward the ongoing battle against cheaters. Some of the comments demanded even more rigorous measures, e.g., @ItsMarrchy saying: “Force iommu on premium players, or I will unsubscribe till you do. It’s absurd to allow people to cheat for one more year.” The replies expressed annoyance with cheating everywhere, indicating how badly the community is yearning for a just playing field.
But not everyone was caught up with the cheating issue. Players began sharing their tech struggles with the new requirements. @glockiana80 was lamenting: “I had to get this required for gameplay after the crazy bhop update lol. Too bad my pc can’t update 🙁 I wasn’t hacking.” This brings up the question of whether players with old hardware will be affected by the changes.
The debate over Windows 11 as well arose, with @yohan_1956 blaming the new OS for his performance difficulties. However, other users supported the opposite claim, e.g., @glostermeteor3 replying: “That is not true, I am using 11 on lower hardware and have the same exact performance as with w10; you just need to tweak your OS.” Their conversation shows that there is still a lot of misunderstanding regarding system requirements and performance tuning.
What is even more stunning is that this decision is also part of broader industry trends. As @ItsMarrchy said in another post: “Microsoft is stopping support for Windows 10. Doesn’t it mean to allow people to use it when security hole won’t be fixed by Microsoft?” This makes it sound like FACEIT has the future in view, perhaps gearing up for the slow extinction of older Windows versions.
The technical debates went so far that one user, @sekoidd, declared: “IOMMU is the only interesting option: everything else has been bypassed a long time ago.” This means that while TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot are good measures, the war between anti-cheat developers and cheat creators is still very much alive.
Some of the comments, however, were simply comical. @aimlevel, when they saw the announcement, tweeted, “AB INS BIOS!? 😍😍😍😍😍😍😍,” expressing the joy (and maybe a bit of panic) of having to dig into the system settings. Conversely, @TriZiuS91 admitted: “I haven’t played FACEIT for months because I can’t figure out the Secure Boot requirement.”
Looking back, the timing of this announcement was measured. By issuing players barely a year notice, FACEIT makes sure that nobody can claim they weren’t given enough notice. Besides, the force will be gradual, and those needing the support to upgrade their systems will get the help.
For those who may not know, TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot are the very essence of the modern hardware-based security framework. They are the guardians that lock out even the hard and zero-day attacks, and unauthorized software installations. The Trusted Platform Module – TPM is responsible for handling encryption keys and security activities, while the Secure Boot is responsible for allowing only trusted operating system components to get loaded during computer startup.
The community reaction has been… well, something you would expect from gaming Twitter. Support, doubt, and technical queries are there. Random insults once in a while, too. But despite the fuss, it is quite clear that most players, even though they are not particularly excited about the likely necessity of upgrading the system, understand the need of these measures.
As the November 2025 deadline approaches, players can look forward to more guides and tutorials being available to aid in enabling these features. The positive side is that in the case of the majority of modern systems, these settings are already present and just need to be activated in the BIOS. The situation is different for PlayStation and Xbox console players, who typically don’t need to worry about these PC-specific security settings.
