As long as I can still accidentally flashbang my team, I’ll find ways to shame myself

If you ever played Counter-Strike even once, you will surely have committed the classic blunder of misclicking in the shop and buying the wrong gun. No shame in it. All you can do is laugh and try your best while armed with, ah, a pair of dual pistols? No more! The latest big update toCounter-Strike 2’s invitation-only test has added the option to refund new purchases. A whole new buy menu, even, far nicer thanCS:GO’s rubbish wheel. Also a new map and a load of other stuff that mostly matters to jammy gits who have access.

Observe, the glory:

Bought the wrong thing? Meant to buy a different weapon, armor, or grenade? Sell your purchase back and buy again (during buy time).pic.twitter.com/7KJ4WN82XU

The end of an era. A salute to all the brave heroes who blew a crucial round because they fumbled buying the AWP they’d spent so long saving for. And farewell to a Counter-Strike rite of passage, I suppose. Still, as long as you can still accidentally flashbang your team in spawn, you’ll still be able to feel that deep shame and horror and wish you never had fingers at all.

Another part of the new experience is these here loadouts, as Valve demonstrate:

Any 5 pistols, any 5 mid-tier weapons, and any 5 rifles. Today’s Counter-Strike 2 update introduces a revised loadout system where players select 15 weapons from 3 categories on CT and T-side to bring with them into matches. Including the M4A4 and M4A1-S.pic.twitter.com/enl7mW9qnT

Other newness in Tuesday’s patch: Mirage has replaced Dust 2; the Hammer level editor now uses raytracing to speed up compile times (nice!); tweaks to the much-vaunted new netcode; more stuff. I’ll not get into the minutiae when the CS2 test is still only for folks lucky (and dedicated) enough to have been invited, but you can readthe patch notesfor everything if you’re curious. Awee patchfollowed last night too.

Counter-Strike 2is CS:GO updated to run on Valve’s newer Source 2 engine, and will launch as a free update. It brings snappy new netcode, cool new volumetric and dynamic smoke for smoke grenades, visual overhauls for maps, and more. Seethe CS2 sitefor more info.