A new change has been announced for Counter-Strike 2 with the introduction of a player loadout system. The buy menu has also been changed for the first time in a decade with a brand-new design. There are a few key things to know about the changes, so read on to learn more!
For the first time since CS2’s announcement roughly three months ago, Valve has released the next wave of information about the upcoming game. The second wave of beta invites has been announced, Workshop tools for the community are now enabled, and Valve Anti-Cheat has been activated. More maps have also been slowly coming out, with Mirage added alongside the loadouts, and Nuke and Office following shortly after.
Additionally, the gameplay has received its next big updates. The movement has been further refined, smokes have been tweaked, audio is improved, and the second big change to the Counter-Strike formula has come with the introduction of player loadouts.
For over 20 years, the buy menus in Counter-Strike have never shown every purchase option on one screen. In the original CS, you would click on a category such as pistols, rifles, or equipment from a list and then buy from a selection within that. In CSGO, this changed slightly from a list to a wheel of categories to make it easier for controller players while everything else remained the same. This has been an effective system for decades as it is clean and simple. It lets players learn about the different types of weapons with similar guns being close in the menu.
However, its simplicity does have several drawbacks, especially in CSGO. Learning about every weapon is harder when they are all in different places and navigating the menu can be difficult for beginners as some categories have different types of weapons. For example, the “Heavy” category contains both shotguns and machine guns which are extremely different.
Additionally, the current menu gives players less flexibility in what weapons they can use.
Players have to choose between two similar weapons while they are forced to have some they may not want. In the “Rifles” section, the player has to pick either the M4A4 or M4A1-S with one not being available to purchase. Both are viable weapons and one is not available, while the auto-sniper (which is rarely used) is always available. This restricts the player’s ability to use weapons they want as a weapon, and forces people to choose between two plausible options.
The newest update looks to change all of that as Valve has completely reformatted the buy menu. Instead of a menu with pages for each category, the CS2 buy menu is a one-page grid with everything you can buy on one screen. There are five different categories sorted into columns with four coming from the original buy menu (Equipment, Pistols, Rifles, and Grenades) and a new “Mid-Tier” category being introduced. This new section is just the SMG and Heavy groups combined into one.
Buying using number keys is still possible with the first input selecting a column and the next purchasing the corresponding item in that group. Instead of long, technical statistics for every weapon, the new menu has a brief description of it along with a difficulty rating from one to four stars.
Another new feature of the menu is the ability to refund things you buy. If at the beginning of a round, you buy something by mistake and don’t use it, you can refund it and get your money back. You cannot sell a weapon after you fire it or past the buy time. This is a fantastic addition, as misclicks happen and sometimes the team wants to eco but someone bought without thinking.
You might notice that the CS2 buy menu only has 15 slots for weapons compared to 21 slots in CSGO. With the same number of guns and fewer slots, this would seem to further limit player choice. However, it is a part of the new loadout system which gives players more control over what guns they use.
The player loadout allows you to select any weapons from set categories to be available for purchase in-game. Instead of some weapons being mutually exclusive like the M4A4/M4A1-S or the Five-SeveN/CZ75-Auto, you can now equip both by getting rid of any other weapon from the same group. There are three different groups which each give the player five weapon slots. Let’s go through each category’s options and offer some suggestions for creating your loadout:
The pistol section of the loadout contains one slot for a starting pistol and four for others for a total of five pistols. The starting pistol slot has only one option on the T-side (Glock-18) and two options for the CT-side (P2000 and USP-S). The difference between the two CT pistols is slight, but most prefer the USP-S for its silencer. The other pistol section has four slots and six pistols to choose from: P250, Dual Berettas, CZ75-Auto, Tec-9 (T)/Five-SeveN (CT), R8 Revolver, and the Desert Eagle.
Any four of these six may be selected so personal preference will dictate what you equip. Only two need to be excluded so you have a lot of freedom in what you choose. However, here are a few tips for creating your pistol loadout:
The mid-tier section of the loadout contains five weapon slots, and all are filled from one group. The options for this group are the old “SMG” and “Heavy” categories combined for a total of 11 different weapons: MAC-10 (T)/MP9 (CT), MP7, MP5-SD, UMP-45, P90, PP-Bizon, Nova, Sawed-Off (T)/MAG-7 (CT), XM1014, M249, and the Negev.
There are a lot of different weapons here and only space for less than half of them. Unlike the rifles, few are side-specific so many weapons must be omitted. Let’s go through some recommendations for each one’s viability:
The rifles section of the loadout has five slots and the options come directly from the old “Rifle” category only. Many of the weapons are specific to one side, though a few are available on both. The rifle section has a total of 6 (T) or 7 (CT) different weapons to choose from: Galil AR (T)/FAMAS (CT), AK-47 (T)/M4A1-S (CT)/M4A4 (CT), SG 553 (T)/AUG (CT), G3SG1 (T)/SCAR-20 (CT), SSG 08, and the AWP.
The rifles section is diverse in both use and cost, meaning you can easily customize your loadout to how you play. You can prioritize cost, scopes, and a few other factors when choosing your weapons, but here is a general guide to each weapon’s utility:
The release of Counter-Strike 2 is growing ever closer, and this update refreshes the CS formula without changing its core. The old buy menu was iconic but had many problems that were felt more as time passed and it was time for a change. The new grid menu updates the look without feeling out of place and the loadout system is a great addition to go with it. Loadouts will allow people to have more freedom to get the guns they want to use based on their style of gameplay. Crafting your loadout and comparing it with friends and pros alike will be a fun and challenging new component to the game, so get ready to make yours when CS2 releases.
Good luck and have fun!
