CS:GO’s 10th operation is here. Operation: Broken Fang is a 2.2 GB update and contains
new maps, missions, player models, skins and… patches. And I’ll warn you now: the new
intro sequence is loud. But then, so was the old one.
It seems like you need to buy the pass for this operation to get access to most of the
features. The cost is $15, 12.75 euros, or £11.50.
Once bought, you’ll be given 16 weeks’ worth of missions, very similar to how Operation:
Shattered Web worked. This time around, most of these missions are split into several ‘stars’.
For example: one of the missions is to win rounds on the map, ‘Engage’. You get one
star for 7 rounds, another at 15, and a final one at 20. This makes it easier to get the
required number of stars each week, since it means you can half-complete a number of
the missions and still get enough. If you count up the number of stars in week
1 you’ll see there are 19 in total, but you can only earn 10. I assume this means
you can only earn 10 to spend in the store, with any extra stars earned merely counting
towards levelling up your coin’s colour and granding you XP bonuses. So there’s
still reason to getting extra stars, but this time around I don’t think it’s required
for you to reach the Diamond coin status, which seems to only take 100 stars. Which
is easier than in Shattered Web where it required you beat every mission in the entire operation.
Let’s look at the store. It looks like you can choose which rewards you want this time,
so in the first week you could get 10 sticker collections, or one superior agent, or you
could save up until you have 25 and get a highest grade Master Agent skin. I know already
that I’ll be pumping all of my stars into this guy. As many of him as I can get. And
while you can’t get more than a certain number of stars from missions every week,
you’re free to spend money on more stars, which will let you buy as much stuff as you’d
like. You can see on the store page that there’s
a new Broken Fang case, 3 new skin collections, and new stickers, patches and graffitis, all
of which can be bought using the stars earned over the course of this operation. I’ll
likely be covering these in more detail at a later date. There’s a lot more to talk
about in this video first!
Closely tied in with some of these new missions is the new ‘Broken Fang Premier Mode’,
which is like a separate matchmaking queue for people who have bought the pass. But it’s
more than just that! It takes you to a custom map where you’ll go through a map-selection
system, where each team takes turns to ban certain maps, and then ultimately chooses
which team they want to start as. It’s weird it has to load up a map to do this, but I
see the benefits to this kind of system. Since all maps are a possibility, it should speed
up how long it takes in the first place to find a game and gives you some time to speak
to your teammates before the game begins. Let’s hope it brings about a sense of comradery
to make matches a less toxic experience!
There’s also a STATS page which looks like it will be a great place to monitor all sorts
of information about the games you play. CS:GO has had this sort of stuff before but it was
rubbish, but this time around looks to be detailed enough to be useful. It shows a number
of diagrams which will quickly show you your win % on maps, and your KD with each weapon
in the game. The heat maps look particularly interesting. This sort of stuff has existed
before to help mappers with balancing their creations, but it looks like now you can see
your own personal information in this way, too.
Like most of this operation, it’ll be a lot easier to take a look at this in a few
weeks, right now with the operation being so new, there’s not a lot of information
to work with.
We also get 7 new maps. Available in scrimmage mode are new defuse maps, Ancient and Engage,
and a new hostage map, Apollo. 2 Wingman maps include Guard and Elysion- these were in the
Wingman mapping contest this year, though they came 4th and 7th in that. There’s a
new dangerzone map, Frostbite- the first one NOT to be situated on an island surrounded
by water. I might have had an inkling that this map was going to be featured when Valve
fixed the bugs that arose from the mountains surrounding this map that were interfering
with the drones and their ability to reach their destinations.
And the last new map is a coop one called ‘Autumn’, which you’ll get to play in
one of the missions in this first week. I loaded it up and flew about it and it looks
really nice and sunny.
And there’s a new gamemode: RETAKE! Now I understand why there were new compatibility
versions of all the maps- they’ve all been given specific spawns and zones to enable
this new gamemode. This has been a popular gamemode for a while now- 3 terrorists plant
and guard a specific site, and 4 CT’s have to retake and defuse the bomb from various
randomly chosen spawn positions. You get to choose from a few different loadouts at the
beginning, which determines the weapon you’ll be using that round and which grenades you’ll
have at your disposal You can press the buy menu to reselect your equipment. It seems
like you get exclusive access to some if you were the MVP. In the first few seconds of
every round, CTs are stuck in place while Terrorists can move in a restricted zone around
the bombsite. Whoever has the bomb automatically plants it and can’t prevent that from happening.
This gamemode is a frantic and fast-paced affair and is great for practicing certain
positions and sites in preparation for a competitive match. So it’s good to see it being officially
included, together with a clear audio and visual explanation of where the bomb is every
round. It still didn’t stop me from going the wrong way a few times though.
And last is a massively improved communication feature. The game now supports up to 3 custom
communication wheels. When you press it in-game, it will show up like this and will allow you
to quickly relay important information or requests with your team. You can configure
which messages these wheels contain in the options menu – and there are a lot of things
to choose from. This is great because not everybody has a microphone, and even if they
do, they might not speak the same language as you do. So I’m hoping these shortcuts
will be automatically translated to any language. And by middle-clicking, it will ping where
you’re pointing in a way that’s visible on the mini-map for everybody to see. This
was a super useful feature in Apex Legends and honestly I think will be the thing I use
most in CS:GO. I’m always saying ‘they’re over here’ or ‘there’, now thanks to
this ping my teammates might stand a chance of knowing where I’m talking about!
Lots of exciting things in this operation, even if you’re not interested in the missions
or the pass itself. You CAN play some of the missions without buying the pass, provided
it doesn’t require access to the new Premier Mode. And you won’t earn any stars from
doing them. The operation ends in 16 weeks’ time on April 30th. How about that- we got
a new operation less than a year after the last one ended.