2026-02-09

VAULT UPDATE

Update 1.60.0 is now available in BETA for both Android and iOS.

Table of contents:

VAULT

Introducing Vault, a brand-new way to unlock rewards!

WHAT IS VAULT?

  • Vault is a new store that offers items for a new currency - Vault Chips.
  • Vault has new and rotating offers with items to redeem.
  • Vault allows players to choose the rewards for themselves.

VAULT VOUCHERS

  • You can now purchase Vouchers that can be decrypted by earning XP to receive Vault Chips.
  • At the start, the Voucher can be purchased with Credits or through an in-app purchase.
    • Vouchers can be purchased with Credits until April 16th.
  • You can earn up to 40 Vault Chips from one Voucher, with one Chip being earned immediately after purchase.

WEEKLY CHALLENGE

  • Weekly Challenge will now allow you to earn Vault Chips.
  • Increased required missions to complete the Weekly Challenge to 12 from 6.

CRITICAL PASS REMOVAL

  • We want to improve the quality of earned and bought content.
  • While the value of a Critical Pass was high for the players, the current format did not support additional development of the feature.
  • Critical Pass and its format have not consistently delivered the content quality expected by players.

WINNER’S DEAL REMOVAL

  • Winner’s Deals were intended to be an occasional value deal. How we originally implemented the deals was not matching the intent and effectively devalued normal Credit purchases and, in turn, Critical Pass purchases, which were made with Credits.
  • We are moving the recurring discounts to be earned by playing the game through the Vault
  • We may, on occasion, offer new time-limited value bundles.

CREDITS AND MISSIONS CHANGES

  • Replaced the Recruit Case with 10 Credits as a reward for daily missions.
  • Increased Credits earned from offers in the store:
    • First offer: Increased to 250 Credits from 240.
    • Second offer: Increased to 650 Credits from 620.
  • Clan creation price reduced to 500 Credits from 1000.
  • Removed ad boosting from mission.

SKIN FIXES

We took time to revisit and restore the quality of fan-favorite skins that had lost it over the years.

GLOVES

  • Black Paisley
  • Green Paisley
  • Orange Paisley
  • Bengal
  • Sync
  • Nanocarbon
  • Target Lock
  • Frost

KNIVES

  • Karambit - Cicero
  • Karambit - Inkdrop
  • Remix - Powershot
  • Remix - Predator

WEAPON SKINS

  • FP6 - Police Tape
  • TRG - Police Tape
  • URatio - Giggles

MARKETPLACE UPDATES

  • Buy request item limit increased to 5 units from 1.
  • Minimum listing commission reduced to 9 Credits from 10.
  • Minimum listing price reduced to 10 Credits from 11.
  • Active listing limits increased to 200 buy requests and 25 sell offers.

Buy requests with multiple items make bulk purchases more efficient. Community Marketplace commission is paid per listing, not per item. That way, you can buy or sell 5 units of the same item in one listing but only pay commission as if it were one item. Buying multiple skins in a single listing lets you make profitable trade-ups.

If you are making a buy request for multiple items, the matching system will try to find the best possible combination of sell offers that could be filled instead. If it cannot find a combination that is better than your buy request, it will publish your buy request as usual. That way, you are always guaranteed to get items that you wanted to buy for the price that you specified, or even lower. Similar rules apply to sell offers, too.

ITEM MARKETABILITY

  • Made the following content available on the Marketplace:
    • Esports Champion and Supporter items from 2025.
    • Hesu Agents and Hesu Gloves.

ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT IMPROVEMENTS

  • Added Google as a login method for Critical Ops accounts.
    • Available on iOS and Android.
  • Added a logout button to the profile menu.
  • Added an unlink button to all login methods in the profile menu.
    • Unlinking a login method is only possible if at least one other login method is linked to your Critical Ops account.

The new Google login method (not the same as Google Play) lets you use your Critical Ops account across Android and iOS. The additional profile options allow you to manage your Critical Ops account better and unlink any login methods that may have been lost.

PVE TEAM DEATHMATCH

  • Added “TEAM DEATHMATCH (PVE)” game mode.

TEAM DEATHMATCH (PVE) is a new game mode that allows you to practice and hone your skills with others against bots.

  • Normal TDM rules apply.
  • 2 teams of 5.
    • One team will always contain bots only.
    • The other team will have players and bots. Joining players will replace bots on that team.
  • Duration: 4 minutes.
  • Win condition: The Team with the most kills wins the game.
  • Generates XP, contributes to milestones.
  • Does not contribute to player profile stats such as kills, deaths, wins, etc.
  • Does not contribute to daily missions based on getting kills.

PVE TDM will serve as a stepping stone for newcomers and will also be available to everyone else to play. Regular Team Deathmatch stays available for you to play with and against real players.

MONEY CHANGE INDICATION

  • Added an indication for earning and spending money in a match.

Now, whenever you earn or spend money in game modes with economy enabled, a pop-up will show how your money total has changed. This will expose the kill and objective rewards, allowing players to learn which actions affect their money total and how.

DEFUSE ECONOMY CHANGES

In order to make economy a more important part of gameplay, this time, we are adjusting it for defuse-based game modes.

GENERAL ECONOMY

  • Coalition starting pistol changed to GSR 1911 from XD .45.
  • GSR 1911 price decreased to $300 from $500.
  • XD .45 price increased to $600 from $300.
  • Helmet and Kevlar are now given by default to all players in defuse game modes, excluding Ranked Defuse and Tournament Mode.

KILL REWARDS

  • Melee: reduced to $1500 from $2000.
  • Pistols:
    • XD .45, MR 96, Deagle: reduced to $200 from $400.
    • P250, DUAL MTX: reduced to $300 from $400.
  • Submachine guns:
    • MP7, Vector, P90: reduced to $600 from $800.
  • Assault rifles:
    • SA58: increased to $800 from $200.
    • AR-15, SCAR-H, HK417: increased to $300 from $200.
  • Sniper rifles:
    • TRG22: increased to $800 from $400.
    • M14, SVD: increased to $600 from $400.
    • URatio: decreased to $200 from $400.

TEAM AND INDIVIDUAL REWARDS

  • Round won:
    • Per player: reduced to $2300 from $2500.
    • Enemy team elimination, per player: reduced to $300 from $800.
    • Objective completion (bomb plant/defuse), per player: reduced to $500 from $1000.
  • Round lost:
    • Pistol round loss bonus: set to $2000, instead of forcing the second loss bonus.
    • 4th loss bonus: reduced to $3000 from $3500.
    • 5th loss bonus: removed, used to be $4500.

The pistol round loss bonus logic has been fixed. Previously, after the pistol round, the losing team would start at the second loss bonus, skipping the first entirely, allowing them to have a higher loss bonus on consecutive round losses and receive more money as a result.

Now, instead of starting from the second loss bonus on Pistol rounds, the losing team will get a dedicated bonus for pistol round losses. The loss bonus progression will not skip any entries.

ECONOMY COMMENTS

These economy changes will reduce overall cash flow for both winning and losing teams, making it essential to balance the risk and reward of purchased items and planned strategies, and to keep track of your financial situation.

By focusing on completing team objectives and using a variety of weapons that provide higher earnings per kill, you can earn enough to get your desired gear. Losing that gear in an unfavourable encounter could be the difference between winning and losing the round, or even the game.

Sometimes, the better idea may be to keep the purchased gear for a few rounds, until you lose it or have enough to afford to give it up for something else. And if the money is tight, it may be worth it not to buy anything and make the most of what you’re given.

The Economy and Weapons intel pages have been updated to reflect these changes, and more details have been added.

HITBOX SCALING REMOVAL

Critical Ops used to adjust the scale of player hit boxes based on distance for touch-input players. In this update, this feature is being removed:

  • “How did that hit?”
    • At certain distances, players would get hit by bullets that were too far away from the visible player model.
  • “How is that not a headshot?”
    • Due to the hit box scaling, at certain distances player’s body hit box would envelop the other hit boxes. This resulted in shots that barely miss the head hit box but still make contact with the body hit box, making it look like a headshot but actually being a body hit.
  • “How did I die so fast?“
    • Same as above, since the body hit boxes enveloped the legs, too, players would take more damage than intended. As the upper body damage multiplier is 1.35x, and that of legs is 0.5x, shots that visibly contacted the legs would actually deal more than double the intended damage, causing players to die faster.

All of these caused confusion, raised concerns about the game’s hit registration, and affected the core gameplay and skill ceiling. With the removal of this feature, your shots will only connect if they hit the target’s actual hitbox, and your aiming and weapon handling skills will matter more at longer distances.

RANKED SEASON 17

Ranked Season 17 will start later in the 1.60 update. It will introduce a new set of Ranked Rewards and adjust ranked penalty durations.

  • Ranked penalty durations reduced:
    • To: 30 min > 1 h > 1 day > 3 days.
    • From: 30 min > 1 day > 2 days > 7 days.

The Ranked intel page will be updated to include the Ranked Season 17 rewards and penalty information when the season starts.

MINIMAP IMPROVEMENTS

  • Bomb site target letters “A” and “B” will show at all times.
    • Direction arrows will fade in and out based on site visibility on the minimap.
  • Improved outer minimap outline.

These changes will improve the visibility of map objectives.

ANIMATION IMPROVEMENTS

  • Updated Dragonmourn knife first-person animations.
  • Updated Shortsword knife first-person animations.
  • Updated Balisong knife first-person animations.
  • Updated Tac-Tool knife first-person animations.
  • Updated MP7 first-person animations.
  • Updated AUG first-person animations.
  • Updated Frag grenade first-person animations.
  • Improved third-person movement animation.

MAP UPDATES

ARCTIC

  • Fixed an issue where objects would disappear when they shouldn’t.

GROUNDED

  • Fixed crosshair enemy highlighting through some solid walls.

MISC

  • Anti-cheat improvements.
    • We do not disclose what changes we make to not alert cheat developers. Anti-cheat is always our top priority. Every cheater will be banned, and we will continue to make surprise banwaves targeting the main and side accounts of cheaters.
  • Added a pop-up to confirm player age when opening the game for the first time.
  • Added skull icon and fading out for dead players in the UI.
  • Adjusted XP requirement for the first 30 player levels.
  • Disabled in-app purchases on Amazon due to technical changes in purchase handling.
  • Added a “Continue” button to the reward screen.
  • Improved player report screen.
  • Added collapsible headers to different menus.
  • Ammo count will turn red when running low on ammo.
  • Added Ukrainian localization.
  • Improved camera recoil feedback when shooting and being shot. Most noticeable on high screen refresh rates.
  • Disabled public chat messages about team surrender vote intentions.
  • Improved loading bar visual feedback.
  • Fixed marketplace tables’ headers.
  • Added outlines to currencies and certain UI elements for better visibility.