The First CS2 Operation – The Armory

It has been a long wait. After over three years and much anticipation, Valve has finally released the first operation of Counter-Strike 2! This new CS2 operation, The Armory, comes with a plethora of new content to explore, featuring three new weapon collections, two charm collections, two sticker collections, a new Gallery Case, an all-new scraping preview, and a new limited edition item, the Heat Treated Desert Eagle. Yep, you read that right. Blue Gem Deagles are now a thing. Keep reading to learn more about the new skins, how to activate the Armory Pass and start earning credits, and… what are charms?

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How to Activate the Armory Pass to Play the New CS2 Operation

Before we take a deep dive into all the neat features of this new operation, let’s first go over how to activate the operation pass. Each operation pass costs $15.99 USD. This operation pass is required to earn Armory credits, which can be redeemed for a wide range of items, including the new charms, skins from the operation collection, and the Heat Treated Desert Eagle. Players are able to stack up to five passes at once and make progress on all of them simultaneously, with progress made by earning XP through all game modes! Each pass includes 40 credits, with the first credit being earned immediately and the remaining 39 earned through gaining XP. The Armory pass is only available directly through the game, and can not be traded or sold on the Steam Community Market. The Armory Pass progress will also always stay constant, making the same progress for the same amount of play despite having boosted or reduced XP. To read into how the XP system works in CS2 and explore the fastest methods to gain XP, check out our complete CS2 XP guide.

Check out the official Steam page for the update here:

The Armory

New CS2 Charms

After week after week of speculation and waiting, first prompted by leaks of game files, weapon charms are here! Weapon charms introduce yet another exciting way to customize your weapons, allowing you to stick them anywhere on your skin and dangle fluidly. These little guys make your weapon truly customizable, from dangling little sausage guys from the Missing Link Charms to mini weapons from the Small Arms Charms.

Missing Link Charms

Players may have expected charms, but they definitely did not expect this amount of silliness. Valve developers went all out with this new content, adding sausage figurines depicting anything you can dream of, from Agent Ava to cats, and yes, even the chickens have made an appearance here. You can get a sense of the craziness from the names alone. Here is the complete list of all 17 charms from the Missing Link Collection:

• Lil’ Ava
• Pinch O’ Salt
• Hot Sauce
• Lil’ SAS
• Lil’ Crass
• Big Kev
• Chicken Lil’
• That’s Bananas
• Lil’ Whiskers
• Lil’ Sandy
• Lil’ Squatch
• Lil’ Teacup
• Lil’ Monster
• Diamond Dog
• Diner Dog
• Hot Howl
• Hot Wurst

Small Arms Charms

This other charms collection released in the new CS2 operation provides more guns on your gun, allowing you to attach little gun figures to your weapons. This arms charm collection features 8 unique weapons, with two skins for each, including the default T and CT knives, M4A1-s, MAC-10, Tec-9, USP-S, AK47, and the AWP. Even if you don’t jam with the little sausage guys in the Missing Link Charms, this collection provides a charm for anyone. The list of charms in the Small Arms Charms currently consists of:

• Baby’s AK
• Stitch-Loaded
• Lil’ Cap Gun
• Pocket AWP
• Backsplash
• Whittle Knife
• POP Art
• Glamour Shot
• Die-cast AK
• Disco MAC
• Hot Hands
• Titeenium AWP
• Lil’ Squirt
• Semi-Precious
• Baby Karat CT
• Baby Karat T

Whew! That was a lot of new content to cover. Stay tuned for a deeper dive into these charms, but let’s get going on the rest of the content released in The Armory. This is just 2 out of 7 exciting collections!

New CS2 Skins Released in The Armory

With this new update featuring more than 100 new items, you can be certain the developers tossed some new skins in here. With three entirely new weapon collections and a new case, you can expect the Steam Community Market to get active as players try and get their hands on these new skins. To unlock a random skin from a skin collection of your choosing, it will take 4 Armory Credits, earned through the Armory Pass.

The Overpass Collection

The release of the Overpass Collection may mean a lot more than 16 new skins. This introduces the possibility of the map Overpass being added back in the future as one of the active duty maps, providing an exciting switch for players as Overpass enters Premier and professional play. Though The Armory did not bring new maps, unlike other operations, Overpass may be on the horizon! Getting back to the skins, the Overpass Collection features 16 skins for 16 different weapons, ranging from the AK-47, AWP, and even a new skin for the Zeus! Skins in this collection are inspired by the iconic graffiti present in the map Overpass, including finishes from the Monster to the Biergarten. Here is a list of all the skins in this exciting collection, and stay tuned for our article, which will delve much deeper into this skin collection!

• AK-47 | B the Monster
• Zeus x27 | Dragon Snore
• AWP | Crackow!
• AUG | Eye of Zapems
• XM1014 | Monster Melt
• Dual Berettas | Sweet Little Angles
• Glock-18 | Teal Graf
• Nova | Wurst Hölle
• MAC-10 | Pipsqueak
• Galil AR | Metallic Squeezer
• Negev | Wall Bang
• Desert Eagle | Tilted
• M4A1-S | Wash me plz
• MP5-SD | Neon Squeezer
• P90 | Wash me
• Five-SeveN | Midnight Paintover

The Graphic Collection

If perhaps the messiness of the graffiti design introduced in The Overpass Collection doesn’t attract you, you’ll for sure find a skin for you in The Graphic Collection. Inspired by techniques from traditional print media, full of bright hues and patterns, this new skin collection offers a middle ground between the three skin collections of the new operation. Here is a list of the weapons featured in this colorful collection:

• AWP | CMYK
• AUG | Lil’ Pig
• Desert Eagle | Starcade
• M4A4 | Polysoup
• P90 | Attack Vector
• CZ75-Auto | Slalom
• XM1014 | Halfone Shift
• AK-47 | Crossfade
• SG 553 | Berry Gel Coat
• SCAR-20 | Wild Berry
• P2000 | Coral Halftone
• Galil AR | NV
• MP7 | Astrolabe
• FAMAS | Halftone Wash
• SSG 08 | Halftone Whorl
• M249 | Spectrogram

The Sport and Field Collection

Last but definitely not the least from this new CS2 Operation, we have the Sport and Field Collection. Featuring some of the cleanest skins in the game, these 16 weapon skins have unique finishes from reflective gradients to fades, ready to take all competitive matches.

• M4A1-S | Fade
• Glock-18 | AXIA
• Galil AR | Rainbow Spoon
• UMP-45 | Crimson Foil
• MP9 | Arctic Tri-Tone
• Five-SeveN | Heat Treated
• USP-S | Alpine Camo
• Nova | Yorkshire
• P250 | Small Game
• SSG 08 | Zeno
• MAG-7 | Wildwood
• PP-Bizon | Cold Cell
• AK-47 | Olive Polycam
• FAMAS | Half Sleeve
• Tec-9 | Tiger Stencil
• MP5-SD | Savannah Halftone

With just these three skin collections of the new CS2 Operation alone, there’s no denying Valve spent time and effort into this update. But wait… there’s more!

The Gallery Case

As part of this new CS2 Operation, Valve has also released a new case, with 17 community-designed weapon finishes exploring a wide range of art styles. The golden drop attached to this case is the Kukri Knife, making this case the second to offer the Kukri as a potential drop. Gallery cases cost 2 Armory Credits to acquire and, like other cases, will require a purchased Gallery Case Key to unlock. Here is a list of all the incredible skins contained in the newest skins case.

• M4A1-S | Vaporwave
• Glock-18 | Gold Toof
• UMP-45 | Neo-Noir
• P250 | Epicenter
• AK-47 | The Outsiders
• SSG 08 | Rapid Transit
• P90 | Randy Rush
• MAC-10 | Saibā Oni
• Dual Berretas | Hydro Strike
• M4A4 | Turbine
• SCAR-20 | Trail Blazer
• R8 Revolver | Tango
• M249 | Hypnosis
• AUG | Luxe Trim
• MP5-SD | Statistics
• Desert Eagle | Calligraffiti
• USP-S | 027
• Kukri Knife

The possible skins for the Kurki Knife include – Forest DDPAT, Slaughter, Fade, Safari Mesh, Crimson Web, Boreal Forest, Night Stripe, Urban Masked, Blue Steel, Scorched, Stained, and Case Hardened.

Limited Edition Item – The Desert Eagle | Heat Treated

New operations, new items! The Armory provides us with an exciting new limited edition item similar to the Case Hardened skin line. Available in-game for 25 Armory Credits, the Heat Treated Desert Eagle seems to have pattern-based templates similar but not identical to those observed in the Case Hardened skins, making blue gems possible. In fact, as of just a few hours of the new CS2 Operation being released, a fully blue play-side deagle has already been unboxed. Indeed, as the flavor text on this weapon states, a little color never hurt anyone. Let’s just hope the color is mostly blue as players roll this limited edition item.

New CS2 Stickers

This new CS2 Operation presents yet another way to customize your weapons, this time with two new sticker collections and an entirely new finish for stickers – Lenticular. With elemental and character features, in addition to the freely deployable stickers, players have potentially unlimited combinations to play around with, making entire art pieces in the middle of their weapons if they wish to. The new sticker finish and rarity, lenticulars, provide a moving image once rotated, making this the first animated sticker finish. To get a random sticker from a collection of your choosing, a single Armory Credit must be spent.

Elemental Craft Stickers

The Elemental Craft Sticker Collection features unique elemental designs in a cartoonish art style, in both 2D and 3D. There’s a wide variety of designs and colors, ranging from bright yellow lightning to waves in a refreshing blue to a glowing purple fireball. With also the option of glitter, foil, and the all-new finish lenticulars, you can bet there’ll be some extremely creative and good-looking combinations out there.

Character Craft Stickers

This sticker collection released in the new operation provides yet another 25 options to decorate your weapons with. From a clown head to biceps to wings (to a sigma emoji?), Valve has allowed players to get really creative with their weapon crafts. The new moving lenticular skins has also allowed the fun addition of moving googly eyes, so who knows what players can craft with that!

Scrape Preview

To assist you with creating the ultimate craft of your dreams, Valve developers have also implemented a new feature, allowing you to preview scraping before applying stickers to your weapon. This gives you complete control over the final product, allowing you to adjust not only the level of your stickers’ scrape but also its opacity.

Previous Counter-Strike Operations

Throughout the game’s history, many Operations have been released, featuring community-created content, missions, new modes, new maps, gameplay features, and rewards. Here is a list of all the operations from Counter-Strike Global Offensive and our newest CS2 Operation!

1. Operation Payback (April 25, 2013)
2. Operation Bravo (September 19, 2013)
3. Operation Phoenix (February 20, 2014)
4. Operation Breakout (July 1, 2014)
5. Operation Vanguard (November 11, 2014)
6. Operation Bloodhound (May 26, 2015)
7. Operation Wildfire (February 17, 2016)
8. Operation Hydra (May 23, 2017)
9. Operation Shattered Web (November 18, 2019)
10. Operation Broken Fang (December 3, 2020)
11. Operation Riptide (September 22, 2021)
12. The Armory (October 2, 2024)

Wrapping Up!

Though CS2 is not known for being constantly updated, this new operation undeniably brings weapon customization to another plane. Unlike past operations, which included new maps and game modes, Valve has focused mainly on skins and stickers, releasing more than 100 new items, split between three new weapon collections, the new Gallery Case, two new sticker collections, and the all-new charms. To read a more in-depth article on the skins of each collection, stay tuned to the SkinLords Blog Page. There, you can also access general Counter-Strike 2 guides and community updates. Enjoy the update, and as always, keep learning and have fun out there!