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Operation Riptide is the 11th "season" for Valve's free to play shooter Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. It brings with it new maps, an overhauled mission system, new ways to play various modes and more content to unlock like new agents, weapon collections, stickers and patches.

Like previous operations, while CS:GO is free to play the event pass does cost monies at £10.89 / $14.99 / €12.75. It also came with two short cinematics:

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What's actually new? Quite a lot! Including a whole new queue system to allow you to play special private matches on Valve servers, which come with special queue codes. There's also a way to now play with a Steam Group in these matches too.

The mission system has been tweaked this time around too. You now get given a more varied set of missions. Some need to be done in a specific order, while others give you a series of thing to do in whatever order you fancy doing them in. It's a nice blend compared to how they've previously done it.

One thing that might help pull in more people is a change to how long competitive games can be. With this update you now get to choose what you prefer between short matches (score 9 rounds) and long matches (score 16 rounds - the classic mode). Deathmatch also got updates to let you pick between different modes of Team vs Team, Free For All and lastly Team vs Team with your individual score counting (the classic way for CS:GO).

There's plenty more that's new like grenades can be dropped, a new map for Danger Zone and various map tweaks. See the full details on the event page.

I do wish they would look to speed up the loading time. Seems to always take forever to load to the menu on Linux.

You can play CS:GO free on Steam.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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4 comments

x_wing Sep 22, 2021
QuoteI do wish they would look to speed up the loading time. Seems to always take forever to load to the menu on Linux.

How long does it takes to load for you? I recall having slow downs from time to time (maybe taking 30s?), but 90% of the time the main menu loads in around 15s (if not less).

BTW, the game feels quite different in the controls. Maybe they switched the engine?


Last edited by x_wing on 22 September 2021 at 12:21 pm UTC
Liam Dawe Sep 22, 2021
Quoting: x_wingHow long does it takes to load for you? I recall having slow downs from time to time (maybe taking 30s?), but 90% of the time the main menu loads in around 15s (if not less).
On first load on a fresh boot, it can often stick with a black screen for a good 2-3 minutes. It's frustrating and has long been an issue. I've seen a number of posts on different areas from people thinking it's crashes but you sometimes have to leave it for ages. After that first run though it's only a few seconds to load again if you quit and relaunch.
Lofty Sep 22, 2021
Can't wait to play CS:GO on the steamdeck !

ohh wait, it's a terrible port with bugs and performance inconsistencies lasting for years now that totally stopped me playing and enjoying the game. The Linux version needs cleaning with a Vulkan port and preferably sooner rather than later.
Calinou Sep 23, 2021
Quoting: x_wingBTW, the game feels quite different in the controls. Maybe they switched the engine?

The engine didn't change, but some people have reported that the crouch view smoothing acts differently since the update, especially in local bot matches. I've seen that using `sv_cheats 1; net_fakelag 1` fixes this in a local game, but that's not an option for online games if you ever encounter that issue.


Last edited by Calinou on 23 September 2021 at 11:36 pm UTC
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