New CS:GO Operation Taking Flak for Fortniteesque Skins
The topic of operator skins in CS:GO is a recurring one. Some players believe that the skins from the latest operation, Riptide, completely do not fit the game's style. They are even compared to those from Fortnite.
- With Operation Riptide coming to CS:GO the game gained 21 new character skins;
- Their design was not to the liking of a large part of the community, which expresses its dissatisfaction on the forums;
- Operation Riptide skins are comparable to cosmetic items found in Fortnite and described as "out of place";
The latest major update to Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and the Operation Riptide that was introduced with it have met with a positive response from the community. For the most part. However, there's a small fly in the ointment. New operative skins, which not everyone liked. On Reddit, in a thread about CS:GO we can hear voices criticizing the new skins. In the latest operation 21 new operatives have been added, each with a unique look. The word on the street is that they are "out of place" and more reminiscent of skins in Fortnite. Below we quote the entry of user TrickOffice, whose post gained the most publicity.
"I really like all the other changes of this operation, but agents skins are just too much imo.
I love CS:GO, I've been playing since 2014 and it's my go to game over all these years. Nothing beats the tension of CS:GO imo.
This is why it hurts to see Agent skins in my favourite fps, they do not belong in competitive play. Especially these new "SEAL" skins that look like they came straight out of the Fortnite Item Shop. They look completely out of place and damage the competitive integrity that makes CS:GO so special,: writes use TrickOffice
The discussion over operative skins is also taking place on Steam forums, where there is also no shortage of critical comments, some of which we quote below:
"Can we please not change this game into Fortnite/PUBG? Please leave it as it was in the vanilla version or at least give us the option to disable them. I beg you guys, this looks bad," writes Ohayou.
"CS:GO is ruined... cartoonish Fortnite-CS is coming," writes user PainKiller
"I generally don't have a problem with skins, but these here don't resemble CS:GO," writes N4pfkuchen!
And well, when comparing the SEAL series skin with the Wreck Raider skin from Fortnite, you can definitely see some similarities. Whether or not one likes the new operatives is, of course, an individual matter of aesthetics, but quite a few people share the opinion that skins from Operation Riptide simply do not fit CS:GO.
"Honestly, I don't even mind the Fortnite look, it's just that these skins don't make much sense. I guess the jungle-themed ones could be related to the Ancient map, but where do the diver skins fit in here? Even the operations maps don't really fit the operations theme."
Left: Fortnite skin; right: the new CS:GO operative
Forum users have their own ideas for solving the problem of unwanted cosmetic elements. One user suggests that you could turn off the visibility of enemy skins:
"A good compromise I saw recently was the option to disable enemy skins. This enables you to see your teammates' skins, so Valve would be happy that we're still getting a "showcased" product, but it takes away the competitive issues that the community is worried about," writes user Cigs77
While this might seem like a reasonable suggestion, other players are under no illusion that operative skins will be a permanent element, because after all it is these cosmetic and other additions that keep CS:GO afloat:
"Yeah, it sucks, but people should remember that this game lives by microtransactions. I remember a long time ago when people seriously believed that Dota would never have fancy/distracting skins because Valve was "putting competitive integrity first".
These things need to happen, Valve is just another company that cares about profit," writes user nario40
This wouldn't be the first time the CS:GO community has complained about the presence of operative skins. Back in March, we reported on how players were complaining about skins causing enemies to blend in with their surroundings. Valve's lack of response to this issue indicates that nothing is likely to change anytime soon.
