We knew it was on the horizon: Counter-Strike: Global Offensive has been updated with systems to trade weapon skins. You can currently only use the official skins created by Valve but soon you will be able to make and share your own. It will be much like the Steam Workshop support that funds Dota 2 and Team Fortress 2.
Valve have released ten weapon collections. Each is made up of themed skins for each of the game’s guns. The Aztec collection gives all your guns a swampy colouring, for instance. There are also eSport weapon collections. These take a note from Dota 2’s The International Compendium: every sale of an eSports collection adds a little cash to the pot for Counter-Strike pro tournaments. Valve are having the community help fund the sport that grew from the game.
Weapon skins don’t have to be bought. They can be found in timed drops on any VAC secured server.
You can also trade any skin you pick up.
A new item added in this update are StatTrak weapons. These are little add-ons for your guns which track the number of kills you have with that weapon. It clips on under the barrel and can be seen in game.
You can read all about it on the new blog post. Here are the full details:
[ARMS DEAL UPDATE]
- Ten Weapon Collections have been released.
- Standard and eSports Weapon Cases now available – a portion of the proceeds from eSports Weapon Case Key sales will help support prize pools for upcoming community competitive CS:GO tournaments.
- Weapon Cases have a chance to contain new knives and StatTrak weapons, which track all player kills with that weapon.
- Players can receive decorated weapons through timed item drops, available on any VAC-secure server.
- All Arms Deal Update items can be traded.
- All Arms Deal Update items can be sold and purchased through the Steam Marketplace (visit the FAQ for details).
- Every decorated weapon has a unique finish and exterior condition and can be thoroughly inspected in game. The ability to launch the in-game inspection view for an item is available in the Steam Inventory, Community Market, and Steam Trading.
[UI]
- Upgraded Scaleform version to 4.2.
- Improved memory management of Scaleform UI elements.
- Added Inventory to Main Menu and the In-Game Pause Menu.
- Added Loadout to Main Menu and the In-Game Pause Menu.
- Added blog.counter-strike.net blog to the main menu
- Added drop shadows to some UI element text for improved readability.
- Improved some HUD layouts to avoid overlap.
- Game no longer truncates player names in most HUD UI elements. Fonts will now scale down to fit the full string.
- When a player picks up a weapon, the original owner of that weapon will now be indicated.
- Fixed certain buttons missing clicks
[GAMEPLAY]
- Added Silenced M4A1.
- Added Silenced USP.
- New weapons can be equipped through the Inventory UI.
- When a player reloads their weapon, they now drop a magazine that persists in the world.
- Machine gun belts now visually match the ammo count in the viewmodel when firing and reloading.
- Added holdable action key +lookatweapon that allows players to visually inspect their first person weapon while in-game. This has been bound to the F key by default (if that key was previously unbound).
- Players now automatically crouch while planting bombs.
[MATCHMAKING]
- Adding matchmaking servers in Brazil.