CSGO players let down by February 2 update with no Operations in sight

Jeremy Gan
Agent skins from Operation Riptide

CSGO players are dissatisfied after another minor update, as a February 2 patch arrived with minimal map tweaks and no new Operations in sight. 

Valve has just released yet another minor update for CSGO, however, it hasn’t exactly gone down well with the community. The update consists of minor optimization fixes to Anubis, and minor bug fixes to Boyard and Chalice. That’s all there is to the fairly minor patch notes.

This follows a year of constant minor updates to the game, with the only patch of note being in November 18, 2022, when Anubis replaced Dust 2 on the Active Duty map pool and when the AWP and M4A1-S received nerfs. 

Beyond gradual meta shifts, the game hasn’t been met with any new content or Operations over the past 12 months and now, fans are growing tired.

The CSGO community is not happy with the glacial updates to one of Valve’s biggest titles. Operations usually mark the release of new maps, cases, weapons, and game modes for players to try out, and players have been hoping to hear news on the next one very soon.

The last Operation the community received was in September 2021, with Operation Riptide. It brought in new maps, new skins, meta changes in droppable nades, and M4A1-S and Dualies buff.

Devs even brought back an old classic from CS1.6, the Riot Shield, which was available to use in Casual Hostage Maps.

It was well received by the community as many saw it as a sign of Valve starting to care for CSGO’s player base once again, as before Operation Riptide, and the other two preceding it, Broken Fang and Shattered Web, there was an infamous drought of Operations which lasted from 2017 to 2019. 

Operation Riptide was the last Operation fans got back in 2021
Operation Riptide was the last Operation CSGO fans got back in late 2021.

Ever since, CSGO received at least one new Operation every nine months, but that has changed since Operation Riptide. It has been a year since Riptide finished in February 2022, and there are still no signs of a new one. As a result, players took the February 2 update as a chance to express their frustrations.

The legendary CSGO team Navi tweeted a dissatisfied GIF in response to the tweet announcing the update. 

Esports commentator and analyst Raul Ribeiro sarcastically complimented Valve, and then posted a clip of a bug that occurred during a recent match between BIG and Furia in IEM Katowice 2023 where a dropped AK-47 clipped through the map. He politely asked Valve to fix it. 

Many commented in reply to their tweet asking for a new Operation, and begging Valve for new content. Others are asking why Sticker Capsules from the major at IEM Rio 2022 are still up for purchase despite them saying they will be unavailable by December 15.

About The Author

Jeremy is a writer on the Australian Dexerto team. He studied at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, and graduated with a Bachelors in Journalism. Jeremy mainly covers esports such as CS:GO, Valorant, Overwatch, League of Legends, and Dota 2, but he also leans into gaming and entertainment news as well. You can contact Jeremy at jeremy.gan@dexerto.com or on Twitter @Jer_Gan