To arms!

The Arms Race is back! Grab your weapon and get ready for a chaotic confrontation. Get two kills with each weapon or steal your opponents' progress with the Knife (and now the Zeus)! Reach the final stage and make a kill with the golden knife to win.

Today you can expect many other innovations, from the ability to choose where stickers are placed to new content and gameplay changes. Details - here!

Release Notes for 1/4/2024[ UI ]
Fixed cases where there was a visible delay loading map images in the Play menu
Fixed a bug where items that can't be equipped were visible in the Loadout menu
Fixed a bug where loadout items couldn't be unequipped
Fixed a bug where loadout changes weren't saved if the game was quit shortly after making changes
Fixed a bug where loadout changes on the main menu character were delayed

[ MISC ]
Fixed some visual issues with demo playback
Fixed an issue where animations would not play back correctly in a CSTV broadcast
Adjusted wear values of some community stickers to better match CS:GO

[ MAPS ]
Ancient:Added simplified grenade collisions to corner trims and central pillar on B site

Anubis:Adjusted clipping at A site steps between Walkway and Heaven

                                                                     **The Maps Workshop**

The Maps workshop is now open for business.

Community map makers can start uploading their maps to the workshop, and community servers can host those maps. If you'd like to try some workshop maps offline, subscribe to them on the workshop and head to the Play menu.

There are a bunch of other workshop tool updates today, along with a host of other fixes and adjustments to CS2. Check out the notes, play some matches, and keep that feedback coming!

                                            **CS2 Copies Valorants Matchmaking**

The CS2 Matchmaking reminds a lot of people of Valorant's ranked game mode. But is it really like that? And was Riot's shooter the inspiration? Here is how Matchmaking will look like in CS2.

How often have we seen great battles on Mirage, Inferno or Dust 2 ending in a close 16:14 win (or loss, at least in most of my games). This seems to be a thing of the past. A recent leak suggests, that the 30-round-matchmakings are a thing of the past.

The leak proposes, that the half-time in a competitive match will come 3 rounds earlier than in CS:GO. After 12 rounds, the sides will change, with 13 rounds needed to win a game. “Max rounds 12” also known as MR12 has been a point of discussion in the Counter Strike community for years now. Yet, it is likely that it will come to CS2 as the prime Matchmaking length.

Some people are wondering, why Valve are changing to MR12, saying they copied from Riot's prime shooter Valorant. Well, Riot's inspiration for a lot of things in Valorant was Counter Strike 1.6, where MR12 and a maximum game length of 30 minutes were a standard.

Other changes that were found by Aquarius are, that the Short Matchmaking (MR8) gets removed, freezetime will go up from 15 to 20 seconds and time-outs will stay the same (4×30 seconds per team). Additionally, there will be an overtime, if the game is tied up. This overtime will be as we know it from Faceit. 3 rounds on each side, first to 4 wins. But there will only be one overtime, if there isn't a winner after this, the game will still be tied.

Smooya congratulated CS:GO happy birthday: "This game has changed the lives of millions of people and helped me personally"

Professional CS Player:GO Owen smooya Butterfield wrote a birthday greeting to Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. In it, he noted that this game changed his life. Butterfield's message was posted on Twitter.

On August 21, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive turned 11 years old — the shooter was released in August 2012. In 2023, Valve announced Counter-Strike 2 — a free update for CS:GO, developed on the Source 2 engine. Fans expected that the company could release a shooter for the game's birthday, but at the time of publication of the material, nothing is known about the release.