We were all eagerly waiting for a new operation to drop… But I bet no one expected something quite like what we got on October 2, 2024. This second major update for CS2 brought over 100 new items (you read that right: one hundred items), including never-before-seen Charms, alongside a new system for earning cosmetic items (that not everyone will be happy with). Read on to find out everything that’s included in The Armory CS2 update and, of course, to see the new skins! 

Contents

• The Armory
• Charms
• New CS2 Skins
• New CS2 Stickers
• Other Changes

The Armory

The update introduces a new Pass system for earning skins and other cosmetic items for your CS2 weapons. There’s also a new interface for unlocking cosmetics, called—you guessed it—The Armory. Here’s a breakdown of how it works: 

Each Armory Pass costs $16. You can have up to five active Passes at a time and earn credits on all of them simultaneously by gaining XP. Each Pass starts with 1 credit, and you can earn a maximum of 40 credits per Pass. These credits can be exchanged for a random item from a collection—with the exception of one limited-time Deagle skin, you don’t know what charm, sticker, or skin you’ll get, you can only choose what collection it comes from.

Find out more here: CS2 Armory Pass Guide: How to Get Credits Faster

Charms

The previous big update, A Call to Arms, gave us unrestricted sticker placement with up to five stickers per weapon. And before the Counter-Strike community had the chance to fully exhaust every possibility to form stickers into something offensive on the side of a gun, Valve gave us charms. 

These little dangling charms are the CS2 equivalent of Valorant’s Buddies, and they can be attached to your weapon to further personalize your loadout. You can apply them anywhere on the weapon, including on top of a sticker. So, they offer tons of room for creative (and potentially inappropriate) crafts. 

Unlike stickers, charms are movable. You can shift their position on the gun and even remove them entirely and re-attach them to a different weapon. The only limitation is that you can have one charm per gun. 

Read more: What Are Charms in CS2? All CS2 Charms + Guide

New CS2 Skins

Man, did we hit the mother lode of skins with this update or what? Get ready, there are tons of new skins to see… including a new Zeus skin! The Armory CS2 update brings us three new weapon collections and a new case—all in all, 65 new skins. 

…well, 66 if you include the limited-time Deagle. 

Desert Eagle | Case Hardened… I mean, Heat Treated

Valve’s calling it “Heat Treated”, but come on, we all know it’s Case Hardened. (Case hardening is a type of heat treatment, so same thing, really.)

This beauty is only available via The Armory—to get it, you need to buy an Armory Pass and gain a bunch of XP to earn the 25 credits it costs. It’s supposedly only going to be up for grabs for 103 days from the release of the update. If that’s true, then it’ll be gone by mid-January 2025.

The Gallery Case

Let’s move on to the new weapon case. It features a new Neo-Noir, this time for the UMP-45, alongside a new Covert Glock-18 skin (Gold Toof) and a cover M4A1-S (Vaporwave). The case also drop one of 12 Kukri Knife skins.

Anyway, here are the new CS2 skins from the Gallery case—click the images to zoom in:

Find out more about all CS2 Gallery Case skins here!

Overpass Collection

Most, if not all, of these designs will look eerily familiar. They’re all inspired by the graffiti you’ll find on the Overpass map, starting with the iconic design that surrounds the tunnel entrance. This is where you’ll find the new Zeus skin, too—the second one to be introduced into the game.

Graphic Collection

Not graphic like violent or NSFW (sorry), graphic like graphic design and print media. The skins range from vibrant and colorful to rather muted, and the AWP | CMYK is particularly cool. 

Sport and Field Collection

The final skins are, as Valve puts it, “ready for any competition”. Honestly, the theme is a little less clear with this one than with the other two new collections, but that’s not all that important—what matters is that we get another 16 skins! Including an M4A1-S | Fade and a Five-SeveN | Case Hardened Heat Treated, among others:

New CS2 Stickers

Two new sticker collections are now available in the Armory, and they’re designed specifically for crafts. Check them out!

Elemental Craft Stickers

Fire, water, explosions, lightning, a rainbow—this collection has it all, with tons of potential for awesome crafts.

Character Craft Stickers

Ever wanted to put googly eyes on Glock-18 | Vogue? (I know I have!) Well, now you can do that and much more with the Character Craft sticker collection. Have fun!

Other Changes

Alongside tons of new and exciting cosmetic content, Valve also introduced a series of other changes with the October CS2 update. Here they are: 

Stickers: Scraping Preview

We’re going all-in on the weapon customization, it seems—the update adds even more stickers to the game, and you can now preview sticker scraping, with a precise slider showing you what the scraped sticker will look like. When you’re adding a brand-new sticker to a weapon, you can choose its scrape level during application. Plus, there’s now the option to immediately remove stickers from weapons, without having to go through the process of scraping them. 

Skin Customization: Item Preview

Stickers, patches, and charms can be previewed on items from your inventory. So, if you find a sticker or charm you like on the Steam Market, in the Armory, or in someone’s Steam inventory, you can try it out on one of your weapons. Neat!

Maps: Italy in the Competitive Pool + More

The fan-favorite Hostage Rescue map, Italy, has been added to competitive matchmaking. Other maps, including Ancient, Anubis, Dust2, Mirage, Nuke, and Overpass, received plenty of small bug fixes. 

Animation: Improved Leg Movement

A bunch of animation improvements have been implemented, mostly focusing on leg and feet movement/placement, as well as character posing. Many players like the way the new animations feel, others worry about the impact of these changes on peeking accuracy. Either way, strafing in particular looks much more natural.

Trading: 7-Day Remarket Hold

The Armory update adds a 7-day remarket hold on everything you buy in the in-game store, on the Steam Market, or via Trade Offers. After purchasing a skin or another item, you’ll need to wait 7 days before you can put it back on the market or otherwise trade it. 

Alright, that about sums it up! What do you think of the new update, skins, charms, all of it? Are the Armory Passes an exciting new way to get skins… or a bit of a rip-off…? Let us know on our socials, and have fun exploring everything that’s new in CS2!