The 2021 Stockholm Major is almost here and you can start supporting your favorite teams now!

The 2021 Viewer Pass, Team Sticker Capsules, and Team Patch Packs are now available for purchase. 50% of the proceeds go to the teams and organizations taking part in the 2021 Stockholm Major.

Viewer Pass
With a Viewer Pass, you’ll get a Stockholm 2021 Event Coin, Pick’em challenges to complete, all-you-can-spray team graffiti, Steam.tv flair, and exclusive access to Stockholm 2021 Souvenir Packages.

Every time you upgrade your coin, you can redeem a Souvenir Package of the match of your choice. Souvenirs will feature gold stickers of the teams and map of the match, so watch the Major and make your choice!

Want more? Purchase the ‘Viewer Pass +3’ to start off with three Souvenir Tokens, or purchase as many Souvenir Tokens as you’d like once you’ve activated your Pass.

Team Stickers and Patches
Team Sticker Capsules and–for the first time ever–Team Patch Packs are now available for purchase. Team Sticker Capsules feature paper, holo, foil, and gold stickers, while team Patch Packs feature regular and gold patches.

Finalist and Champion Capsules
Introducing the Finalists Autograph Sticker Capsule and the Champions Autograph Sticker Capsule, containing the autographs of the champions and other finalists! These capsules will be available for purchase after the Major, so make sure to root for your favorite teams and give them the fan support they need to make it to the playoffs!

Today we are shipping a new Music Kit from bbno$ featuring the song “u mad!” from his new album “eat ya veggies”—out tomorrow!

So eat ya veggies and pick up the new bbno$ Music Kit in standard or StatTrak versions, available now!

Release Notes from today are below:


- Added the bbno$ - u mad! Music Kit, available in regular and StatTrak™ variants.


- Danger Zone
— Respawning players are no longer able to select respawn locations that should have been prohibited by the spawnmask map.
— Smoothed camera motion when using ExoJump.


- Added new VO for Trapper and Trapper Agressor Agents.
- Adjusted ragdoll physics.


- Dust 2
— Re-tired visblocker from T spawn to mid
— Blocked unintended wallbang

- Insertion 2
— New glass texture for windows in office, to make it easier to see from inside if the glass is broken or not.
— other minor tweaks

- Ravine
— Fixed bomb stuck spot near spawn
— Clipping fixes
— Updated radar

- Basalt
— Added a reception desk to B Connector
— Added an additional window to Red Barn
— Removed railing on A for easier movement
— Visual upgrades to bombsite B
— Visual upgrades to Red Barn
— Added literature
— Added a fuzzy carpet
— Small visual upgrades across the whole map

- County
— Disabled physics on window at creek house
— Removed possibility to set metal frame of the quarry building in motion
— Set proper scale on metal containers
— Improved cliff models collision
— Clipped cave ceiling and wooden roofs in order to prevent players from getting stuck while using exojump
— Fixed collision on aspen tree models to prevent players from getting stuck
— Fixed global sound on bunker doors
— Fixed all reported stuck spots while jumping
— Increased fade distance for corn field
— Clipped beach part of the map to prevent players from escaping the map with bump mines
— Extended watertower ladder
— Fixed reported floating barrels/turrets
— Made waterfall floor more shallow so that the items can be picked up
— Closed of some of the rooms in haunted mansion
— Renovated haunted mansion
— Removed killzone on the left side of the bridge
— Optimization

Dive into Operation Riptide, available now!

New challenges await, with new maps, new game mode options, and the all-new Private Queues! The Operation mission system has gotten an overhaul--complete your weekly missions and choose from a variety of rewards including new agents, weapon collections, stickers, and patches.

Visit the Operation Riptide website to learn all about the Operation, and check out two new short videos below:

CS:GO - Operation Riptide, "Tomb Stone"
CS:GO - Operation Riptide, "Fowl Play"

Release Notes for the Operation Riptide update can be found below:

OPERATION RIPTIDE
Introducing Operation Riptide, featuring new maps, new missions, and new ways to play your favorite game modes! Activate an Operation Riptide Pass and complete your missions to earn rewards including all new agents, weapon collections, stickers, and patches.

GAME MODES
Added:
Private Matchmaking Queues
- Generate a Queue Code and share it with your friends to create a private Premier match on Valve servers
- Or, select one of your Steam Groups and play a match exclusively with other members of that group

Short Competitive
- Added the option to select a preference for match duration in competitive Matchmaking: Short (MR 16), Long (MR 30), or No Preference.

Deathmatch
- Added the option to select Classic Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch (first team to 100 kills wins), and Free-for-all Deathmatch (all players are enemies).

Demolition
- Reduced max rounds to 10 and eliminated half-time team swap.
- Reduced round time
- Adjusted weapon progression

Arms Race
- Adjusted weapon progression
- Players now receive a health-shot after three kills

GAMEPLAY
- Grenades can now be dropped just like weapons.
- Vision after death reduced from 3.0s to 2.0s (vision by headshot reduced from 1.0s to 0.5s).

- Deagle
-- Reduced body damage

- M4A1-S
-- Increased body damage

- Dual Elites
-- Reduced price to $300

- Ballistic Shield
-- Added the Ballistic Shield heavy weapon to the buy menu, currently purchasable by CTs in Casual Hostage map groups.

MAPS
- County has been added to official matchmaking in Danger Zone game mode.

- Basalt and Insertion II have been added to official matchmaking in Competitive, Casual, and Deathmatch game modes.

- Ravine and Extraction have been added to official matchmaking in Wingman game mode.

- The following maps are no longer available in official matchmaking: Grind, Mocha, Pitstop, Calavera, Frostbite.

Dust2:
- Slight visibility tweak from T spawn through mid
- Improved visibility into B back site from upper tunnels

Inferno:
- Made gate at top of banana solid
- Revised 1v1 layout
- Minor bug fixes

Ancient:
- Increased size of plantable area in both bombsites
- Fixed bullet penetration on plywood surfaces
- Further optimizations
- Added 1v1 arenas

Today we are shipping the 2021 Community Sticker Capsule, featuring 21 unique stickers from various Community Workshop artists.

Whether you are trying to make it look “EZ” or telling your teammates “This Is Fine”, there’s a sticker for everyone.

Today we’re shipping the Tacticians Music Kit box, featuring six new Music Kits from Austin Wintory, Chipzel, Jesse Harlin, Laura Shigihara, Leonard Paul (Freaky DNA) and Sarah Schachner.

There’s no better tactic than sharing your new MVP anthem with the rest of the server!

Release Notes for 8/12/2021 can be found below:


– Added the “Tacticians” Music Kit Box, available in regular and StatTrak™ variants, featuring 6 new music kits:
— Austin Wintory, Mocha Petal
— Chipzel, ~Yellow Magic~
— Freaky DNA, Vici
— Jesse Harlin, Astro Bellum
— Laura Shigihara: Work Hard, Play Hard
— Sarah Schachner, KOLIBRI


– Added a designation of bombsite A and B to game events generated when player begins to plant the bomb and finishes planting the bomb.

On July 22nd the CS:GO team is launching the $1 Million Dreams & Nightmares Workshop Contest.

We are looking for 10 original dream or nightmare-themed weapon finishes for CS:GO. Each of the 10 winning entries will earn $100,000. Beyond submitting your original weapon finish to the CS:GO Workshop, all you need to enter is a non-limited Steam account. And yes, teams of more than one person can also enter.

To help content creators get a better feel for what we’re looking for we’ve launched a dedicated web site for the contest. Here you will find more info on the types of finishes we’re looking for, examples of the Dreams & Nightmares theme, info on how to enter, details of the contest, and more. We've also created a sub forum in CS:GO's Discussions for artists, technical artists, and others to collaborate on contest-themed submissions and ideas.

We launched the Workshop on Steam almost 10 years ago in the hopes of creating a centralized hub for community created content. Since then, over five million content creators have submitted and published over 20 million new items for a variety of games on Steam, making them available to millions of gamers around the world. And, as everyone who plays these games knows – including CS players – many of the most iconic in-game items, maps, and more have been authored by members of the community. The Dreams & Nightmares Content Contest is designed to help further support this community.

If you have any questions or comments about the contest, please email us at csgoteamfeedback (at) valvesoftware (dot) com using the subject “Dreams & Nightmares.”

Get started today; submissions are due October 21, 2021!

– Premier matchmaking can now be selected together with other competitive maps.
– Added competitive matchmaking presets and ability to save/load favorite map selections.
– Added a link to CS:GO Fair Play Guidelines when playing on official game servers.


– Bullet penetration check will ignore the firing player model entirely.
– Fixed bot difficulty selector to correctly apply for offline with bots War Games matches.
– Stability improvements.

CS:GO went free to play over two years ago and is still going strong. We see new players entering CS:GO all the time, and it’s as important as ever that anyone in the world can pick up and play the game for free.

Along with all the gameplay that we made available for free, new players had access to drops, Ranks, Skill Groups, and a free path to Prime matchmaking. Unfortunately, over time, those benefits have become an incentive for bad actors to hurt the experience of both new and existing players. So today we’re revising the offering for new players.

New players can still play every game mode, play on community servers, and play workshop maps. However, they will no longer receive XP, Ranks, drops, or Skill Groups; those features are now exclusively available to Prime Status players.

New players can still upgrade to Prime by purchasing the Prime Status Upgrade from the Steam store, however there is no longer a free path to Prime. And if you purchase the upgrade in the next two weeks, your current Skill Group and XP progress will carry over.

Introducing ‘Unranked’
When new players play Competitive, Wingman, and Danger Zone, their matches will still use skill-based matchmaking, but players will not earn a Skill Group.

Prime players can also play Unranked matches, where their Skill Group will not be affected and where there are no lobby Skill Group restrictions.

Whether you’re a seasoned veteran or a new arrival, GL and HF!

Today's release notes can be found below.

Release Notes for 6/3/2021

• Non-Prime status accounts will no longer earn XP, Ranks, Skill Groups, item drops, or Prime status through play time.
  
• Non-Prime accounts will not be able to participate in Ranked matches.
  
• Non-Prime accounts will not be able to activate Bonus Rank XP items and can no longer claim Service Medals.
  

• Introducing Unranked matches for Competitive, Wingman, and Danger Zone game modes.
  
• While still formed using skill-based matchmaking, Unranked matches do not affect Skill Group and have no Skill Group party restrictions.
  
• Non-Prime accounts are restricted to Unranked, whereas Prime accounts may choose between Ranked and Unranked.
  
• Ranked matches will always be with other Prime players, exclusively, whereas Unranked matches will be created from the mixed pool of Non-Prime players and Prime players that have chosen to play Unranked.
  

• Added "DebugDrawBoxAngles" to draw oriented bounding boxes. Usage: DebugDrawBoxAngles( ent.GetOrigin(), ent.GetBoundingMins(), ent.GetBoundingMaxs(), ent.GetAngles(), r, g, b, a, time);
  
• Added "GetBoundingMinsOriented" and "GetBoundingMaxsOriented" functions that return the axis-aligned bounding box of an entity taking its current orientation into account.
  

• Scrimmage has been removed from Competitive matchmaking, and has been replaced by Unranked matchmaking.
  
• Added Import button to Workshop Workbench that takes a .tga file and generates a .vtf file. If the .tga file name contains "_normal" the generated .vtf file will be compiled with the 'normal' flag.
  

– Added option ‘2’ to sv_damage_print_enable, which, when set, will only print damage output after round has ended.
– Coach positions are now saved in round backup files.
– In Deathmatch, fixed the ability to extend invulnerability by repeatedly issuing the “open_buymenu” command.
– In Retakes, armor value now remains fixed during card selection.


– Fixed bounding box issue for rotated entities.


– Ancient
— Art-revision on bombsite B and surrounding area
— Higher contrast base textures at B for better player reads
— Fixed random missing micro-polygons in bomb B totem/sculpture
— Recolored plywood throughout the map for better contrast
— Straightened out broken-wall passage to bombsite B
— Tweaked spawnpoint placement for both teams

– Grind
— Reduced lurk positions in mid for more fluid rotations.
— Lowered cover on A Short to allow boosting over smokes.
— Removed unintended boost locations.
— Fixed multiple bomb stuck spots.
— Minor quality of life and art updates.

– Mocha
— Clipping improvements.
— Navigation mesh improvements.
— Added additional bombsite markers.
— Bug fixes: deathmatch gamemode spawns, CT spawn soundscape, minor lighting errors.

– Cache
— Performance optimizations. (Thanks leplubodeslapin!)
— Reduced bird sounds volume.
— Reduced contrast on some textures.
— Brightened sky slightly.
— Fixed minor issues. (Thanks imik!)
— Restored vivid color to select textures and models.
— Restored select details even on lowest graphical settings.

– Adjusted the calculation for the weapon performance category score.


– Fixed a case where players would receive duplicate warnings about launching in untrusted mode.


Ancient
-Implemented Cubby 2.0 in mid connector to A, to remove cheap shoulder angle towards site
-Slimmed down the fancy rock, also in mid connector to A
-Sparsed foliage and improved clipping on boost planter near A main
-Quieted down soundscape birds
-Removed clipping from top of bombsite sign in A site, allowing you to self-boost to planter by T main
-Added vphysics clip to T spawn water so guns don’t fully submerge
-So many clip brush tweaks
-Blocked grenades from entering inaccessible building by T entrance to mid
-Blocked pixelgaps through scaffolding near B site
-Blocked pixelgaps through doorway trim in new CT path to A site
-Simplified grenade collision on rooftops
-General optimizations

Grind
– Made wall on A long surfable
– Fixed invisible wall near B site
– Fixed out of map boost near A site
– Fixed collision of wall near A site
– Fixed collision of pillars around A site
– Minor art updates around T spawn

Frostbite
– Fixed a regression with airdrops
– Fixed stuck spots (thanks Jakob & conzept)
– Fixed a gap in terrain
– Reworked watchtower models