A seemingly minor Counter-Strike 2 update has completely upended the game’s skins market. Valve’s free-to-play shooter is just as, if not more, known for its cosmetics marketplace as it is for its actual gameplay, with many rare items reaching exorbitant prices. Now, some Counter-Strike 2 skins have tanked in value after the recent patch.
The Counter-Strike series has long been a staple of PC gaming, and it’s reached new heights with the likes of CS:GO and CS2. In April 2025, Counter-Strike 2 drew a staggering 1.86 million concurrent players, breaking its own record player count for the third month in a row. The game’s robust skins market certainly plays a role in driving its massive popularity, but a small patch has just thoroughly disrupted this aspect of the FPS.
Some Counter-Strike 2 Items Lose Hundreds of Dollars in Value After New Update
An October 22 update brought several changes to Counter-Strike 2, most of which were optimizations and bug fixes, but two threw a wrench into the works of the game’s skins market. After the patch, players can now trade in five StatTrak Covert items for one StatTrak knife. StatTrak Covert cosmetics, while relatively uncommon, are far from Counter-Strike 2‘s rarest skins, but StatTrak knives are far rarer and more expensive. Similarly, users can now trade five regular Covert skins for a regular knife or gloves item. These rewards may not be the most outrageously priced skins in the game, but the updates still make it much easier to attain cosmetics that would normally cost a pretty penny.
Supply and demand heavily affect the game’s cosmetics market. It’s how some Counter-Strike 2 skins sell for over $1 million while others go for under a dollar. So, by disrupting the effective rarity of some items and making it easier to obtain cosmetics outside pricey peer-to-peer transactions, the update has taken a sledgehammer to the going rate for some skins. According to Forbes, some knives and gloves have lost roughly 70% of their value in just 24 hours, equal to hundreds of dollars for some items.
The move could stem from financial or regulatory pressures on Valve’s end. By opening an easier in-game avenue to get rarer skins, Counter-Strike 2 may keep more players on the in-game marketplace that Valve profits directly from, rather than third-party sites. Alternatively, it could be a way to move away from loot boxes. Over the past few years, several countries have restricted loot boxes or outright banned the mechanic, so switching up the in-game economy could be Valve getting ahead of the regulatory curve. Whatever the reasoning, the change will have big implications for Counter-Strike 2 going forward.
