CSGO Introduces New Battle Royale Mode – Dangerzone

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It seems Valve finally cleared their schedule up enough to drop a new CS:GO update, the biggest in a while. It added a battle royale mode, a new case, and perhaps most importantly, the game went free to play. The update also changed how prime works and what it means.

The marquee feature of the update is the battle royale mode, which valve is calling Danger Zone. In this mode 18 players are dropped into a brand-new map and have to collect money, guns, armor, utility, melee weapons, med kits, all the things you would expect in a battle royale style game mode. Players can play solo, in duos, or in groups of three.

Danger Zone is significantly different from something like Fortnite or PUBG. In Danger Zone, you select where on the map you want to land, and you can’t land in the same place as another person. There is a map that shows the rough area of other players in the game, and there is an economy system that allows players to purchase guns and ammo.

The game mode will likely receive some balance changes in the next month or so. The amount of ammo available seems a little low, and I imagine they’ll increase the weapon variety in the early game as well to some degree.

That all being said, Danger Zone is obviously not trying to be Fortnite. It’s a much smaller scale, it should eventually be more tactical as players start to get a better handle on it, and the number of players in game is much, much smaller. It is unlikely to be a direct competitor to Fortnite, although I can’t imagine that was really the point.

The update also added a case, which you can look at here. This is the first case with an MP5 skin in it, although I’m personally not in love with it. This case has quite a few reused skins, which I always enjoy. They also added an Asimov AK, a Flashback USP, an Oxidize Blaze glock, a Neo-Noir AWP, and a Mecha Industries Deagle.

The most impactful part of this update will likely be the move to free to play. The game’s popularity dipped in the middle of this year, and Valve is trying to reclaim the public’s attention with a big update. The Danger Zone update won’t affect professional play at all, nor will it affect the balance of the game. What it will do is cause an influx of new players to enter the game, which will then cause players to return to the game to play with their friends.

This change to free to play only works with the modifications made to prime. The way it works now is you can add a phone number and level up your account to rank 21, or you can buy it on Steam for $15. Every account that had purchased the game before this update has been given prime and a loyalty badge. Valve seems to be pretty confident in their anti-cheat and in their trust factor system, as this would make cheating in CS:GO even easier. That being said, if you’re an established player your games are unlikely to decrease in quality.

This could signal a shift in how Valve works on Counter Strike from now on. They may focus more on additional content, things like operations, to entice f2p players and coerce more skins money out of them. Valve has vastly improved in recent times about working on and updating CS:GO, and the game is all the better for it, at the pro level and for the casual player. Economy changes have shaken up the meta for the better, and gun variety is at an all-time high with the price reduction for the AUG and the SG.

I would assume this change to f2p signals an operation sometime in the next couple months. That is the best way for Valve to continue to monetize the game, through content packs and micro transactions. The game will likely operate more like Rainbow Six Siege, where content is added regularly to the game that hardcore fans will purchase, while more casual fans will continue to play the vanilla game modes.

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