GoKawiilFor decades now, Counter-Strike players have gotten used to tapping the reload button whenever they have a spare, safe moment. Yesterday evening, though, Valve announced that it had decided this system needed “higher stakes,” overhauling Counter-Strike 2‘s reload mechanic in a way that could disrupt years of muscle memory for millions of players.
Until now, reloading in CS2 has meant dumping the remainder of your current clip “back into an essentially endless reserve supply,” Valve wrote in the game’s latest update announcement. From now on, hitting the reload button will instead make players “drop the used magazine and discard all of its remaining ammo. Instead of ‘topping off’ your weapon with a few bullets, a new full magazine will be taken from the reserves whenever you reload.”
While most weapons will now come with three full clips of reserve ammo, Valve wrote that “some weapons will have less to reward efficiency and precision, or more to encourage spamming through walls and smokes.” Counter-Strike specialist Thour did the math on the changes and found that 7 weapons gained ammo, 16 lost ammo, and 12 saw their total ammo remain unchanged under this new system. Shotguns seem to have seen the biggest upgrades, while strategies that rely on “pistol spam” might have to be rethought from now on.
Messing with success
Counter-Strike 2 is far from the first game to use this kind of “full magazine” reload system, which more closely mirrors how most combatants reload in real-world firefights. Helldivers 2 and Marathon stand out as a prominent recent example of the design decision, but classic military shooter franchises like SOCOM and Rainbow Six have had similar magazine-based reload systems for a long time (including some that let you cycle back to old, partially spent magazines after using enough ammo).