Major Counter-Strike 2 update adds ‘tiny sausage men’ weapon charms and more

Counter-Strike 2 has released a major new update titled “The Armory,” which focuses on bringing even more cosmetics to Valve’s tactical FPS.

Many in the CS2 community were disappointed to see Valve allow the game’s first anniversary to go uncelebrated, but it appears the developer had something big cooking that wasn’t quite ready in time.

Counter-Strike 2 gets a battle pass (sort of)

The Armory Pass is arguably the most significant addition in this update. Coming in at $15.99, this allows you to earn credits for each match you play, which can be spent on all the new cosmetics (which we’ll get onto soon enough). It’s essentially a battle pass, where you have a little more choice over your rewards.

You can buy and activate five of these Armory Passes at a time, all of which will continue to earn credits concurrently. Cynically, it almost sounds like Valve has figured out a way to sell five battle passes at the same time, but I’ll let you make up your own mind on that front.

Charms, stickers, and skins, oh my!

For the first time ever, weapon charms have come to Counter-Strike 2. There are two of these collections: Missing Link and Small Arms Charms. The Missing Link charms are, as described by Valve, a collection of “tiny sausage men” you can place anywhere on your weapon. Small Arms are similar, instead made to resemble iconic CS2 weapons. They’re undeniably charming and a fun new customization option.

Next are the three new weapon collections: Overpass, Graphic, and Sport and Field. Each adds 16 new weapon skins to the game, as well as the Gallery Case, which features 17 community-designed skins.

If you’re keeping count, this combines for a total of 65 new Counter-Strike 2 skins, making this a huge day for cosmetics-loving sections of the community.

And there are fresh stickers, too. The new CS2 update sees the release of two sticker collections, giving you plenty to play around with. As mentioned, the above cosmetics can be purchased by earning credits through the Armory Pass.

See the full list of patch notes in the new Counter-Strike 2 update below:

[ THE ARMORY ]

• The Armory is now available in the store (https://store.steampowered.com/sale/armory)
• Features 3 new weapon collections, 2 charm collections, 2 sticker collections, the Gallery Case, and the Heat Treated Desert Eagle
• Purchase and activate an Armory Pass to start earning Armory Credits
• Make progress toward credits whenever you earn XP with an active Armory Pass
• Redeem credits for items in the Armory

[ CHARMS ]

• Introducing Charms: dynamic items you can apply to your favorite weapons. Currently available exclusively in the Armory
• Drag and drop Charms to precisely place them on the weapon of your choice. A weapon can have one charm attached at a time
• Use a Charm Detachment to detach the Charm from a weapon. The Charm will return to your inventory and can be reused
• Redeeming a Charm from the Armory grants three complimentary Charm Detachments. Additional Charm Detachments are available for purchase

[ INVENTORY & ITEMS ]

• All items acquired from the in-game store (including the Armory), Trade Offers, and Steam Community Market are now subject to a 7 day re-trade and re-market restriction
• All stickers, patches, and charms available on Steam Community Market, in the Armory, or on friends’ Steam Inventory web pages can now be previewed on your own inventory items
• Removed ability to delete weapon cases from your inventory
• Added sticker scrape level selector when applying new stickers to weapons
• Added precise sticker wear level selector when scraping existing stickers on inventory weapons. Any applied stickers can only increase their sticker scrape level
• Added a way to immediately remove existing stickers from inventory weapons in addition to sticker scraping
• Added nametag module preview on the actual items when applying nametags
• Fixed several cases where applying nametags or stickers would unequip the weapon from your loadout
• Customizing a base weapon that’s currently equipped will now auto-equip the newly customized version

[ ANIMATION ]

• Improved character posing when on large slopes
• Made feet pin and unpin differently for all use cases to help remove aggressively leaned characters (AKA the MJ lean)
• Pin/unpin IK logic now not affected by poor server ping times
• Feet IK now repositions to idle pose if the feet have pinned at a largely different pose to that authored
• Re-authored run, walk, and crouch content to fix wide/scissor leg posing when traversing
• Changed ladder animations and behavior so characters heads are much more representative of where the player camera is, including characters now display crouch correctly when on ladders
• Removed popping when crouching or uncrouching while jumped and reduced leaning on jump animations
• Fixed character’s pose popping when falling off a ledge
• Fix for many cases where character’s posing would subtly pop when traversing with slow moving weapons

[ GAMEPLAY ]

• Flashbangs and HE grenades no longer prematurely detonate when they exceed their ‘stuck bounce’ limit

[ GRAPHICS ]

• Added a Display selection dropdown for non-windowed Fullscreen mode to the Video settings screen
• Fixed graphics artifacts for fire effect in the Advanced Video tab

[ AUDIO ]

• Fixed a bug where UI sounds wouldn’t position correctly when in-game
• Fixed an issue where step sounds would play for the local player but fail to broadcast to other players and vice-versa
• Fixed an issue where ragdoll water splash sounds would erroneously play on alive players
• Fixed a case where voice chat didn’t work on community servers
• Fixed a case where incoming voice chats would sometimes never close

[ NETWORKING ]

• Added telemetry option to display graphs of network jitter and misdelivery
• Changed how packet misdelivery is measured. Previously, if packets arrived out of order, this could be counted as misdelivery even if it was corrected and did not impact gameplay. Also, jitter was not considered, even though excessive jitter can disrupt smooth gameplay. The new measurement method will only count reordered packets as misdelivered if they impact gameplay. Furthermore, if network jitter exceeds a threshold where gameplay is affected, the packets are counted as misdelivered even if they are not dropped and arrive in order

[ MAPS ]

• Ancient
  • Fixed some disappearing geometry
  • Fixed some cases where players could detect player movement through water from across the map
  • Fixed some pixel peeks
  • Fixed a case where player shadows could be seen through geometry
  • Adjusted some clipping for better player movement
• Anubis
  • Fixed some missing collision
  • Nudged some geometry and clipping that were blocking grenade throws
  • Improved clipping on some floors for more predictable grenade throws
  • Fixed a pixel peek
  • Adjusted clipping in a few areas for better player movement
• Dust2
  • Fixed some clipping at B site
• Italy
  • Added to competitive matchmaking
  • Fixed bird animations
• Mirage
  • Fixed some C4 stuck spots
• Nuke
  • Fixed a pixel walk
  • Fixed some C4 stuck spots
  • Fixed some gaps in geometry where items could get lost
  • Fixed some disappearing geometry
• Overpass
  • Adjusted some grenade clipping to prevent bad grenade bounces

[ WORKSHOP ]

• Added optional 3rd layer to environment blend shader
• Added biplanar mapping as an option for environment shaders
• Added optional wetness layer, paintable in Hammer on environment materials with the feature enabled
• Added color correction, roughness, and normal adjustments to foliage shader and static overlays

[ MISC ]

• Removed support for command line options that were intended for development purposes only