Valve released Operation Shattered Web in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive almost exactly three years ago. Many players believe this is the second most crucial Operation in the game’s history. Only the initial, first-ever one was more important: Operation Bravo launched in September 2013.
But today CS.MONEY Blog tells why Shattered Web deserved such an attitude and what exactly it changed in the game.
Operation Rethought
First, Shattered Web stands out for its original introduction. The fact is, starting in 2013, CS:GO players got access to new pieces of content, Operations once every few months. The cornucopia of content ended in May 2017, along with Operation Hydra.
And for almost three years, Valve kept silent and had not released a single Operation. At all. Only cases and capsules. But on November 18, 2019, everything changed. Shattered Web, the new operation not only broke the stagnation but also brought everything to the next level.
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First, from that moment, Operations were stated to appear not twice a year but once. However, as we all see now, Valve didn’t keep their promise straight: it’s been more than a year since Operation Riptide’s release. Second, Shattered Web brought tons of new content for the players. Agents, Battle Pass, maps and skins.
Better, Not More
Let’s start with maps because this time, Valve decided to release significantly fewer. Previously, each Operation offered about a dozen new maps to play. But Operation Shattered Web introduced only four: Studio, Lunacy, Jungle and Phoenix Facility. Modestly, but … it’s not really something you would argue about.
The competitive map pool changes exceptionally slowly. In the ten years of CS:GO, Majors have seen only eleven different maps. Therefore, adding new ones in large numbers won’t make sense. Why play them if the Operation ends in two months and its maps are likely to leave the game forever? Therefore, the dev team’s decision to make fewer maps in each Operation is offensive but understandable. The following Operations will also introduce a strictly limited number of maps.
New Battle Pass
Operation Hydra and those before offered players campaigns. Each was a sequence of missions, and completing them would upgrade your Operation’s coin. Also, there were indirect rewards for completing tasks: for example, during Operation Hydra, for every 2000 experience points, players would get a random drop.
There was no campaign in Operation Shattered Web, but it had a Battle Pass. Having 100 levels to complete, it rewarded players with 41 rewards:
- Four agents, one for each quality level
- Three skins each from Norse, Canals and St. Marc collections
- Eight Shattered Web cases
- Eight Operation Shattered Web stickers
- Six graffiti each from Trolling Graffiti Collection and CS:GO Graffiti #2 Collection
In addition, as players progressed through Battle Pass levels, they were upgrading the Operation coin from bronze to diamond.
Limited Collections
Another Shattered Web feature was the Norse, Canals and St. Marc collections. This was familiar, as skin collections have appeared as part of Operations—for example, Gods and Monsters, The Rising Sun or Chop Shop. But Shattered Web changed the approach to such collections’ releases. Here, and in the next two Ops, a total of ten collections came out, each is tied to a specific Operation.
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This decision was also reasonable. There are significantly few such legendary rare skins, and, as a result, their prices were sky-high. AK-47 Gold Arabesque is one of the most expensive skins at all, while AWP Gungnir almost doesn’t differ from Dragon Lore in terms of cost. However, it is not the price tags that are important but the scale at which Valve began to supply such skins. Ten collections in three Operations! And it all started with Shattered Web.
Agents
See, all things mentioned above are simply upgraded features from what we’ve seen previously. But here comes something brand new.
Agents are by far the main and most controversial part of Shattered Web. Along with maps, cases and skins, this Operation added 22 agents: special player character models that replace appearance, voice acting, and hands in first-person view.
Agents look amazing and give players an extra opportunity to express themselves. But the problem was that it didn’t change appearances depending on a map. As a result, some of them were camouflaged neatly on green wall textures and some other map locations, while others were just too bright. To fix this, Valve had to add a new feature that corrected models’ contrasts. The good news is that now not only agents but also regular models are easier to notice thanks to this update. It was an unexpected but positive effect of Operation Shattered Web.
Three years have passed since Operation Shattered Web’s release. Retrospectively, we can say that it has changed the game a lot. Release rates, content, battle pass and items: this Operation turned everything upside down. But here comes another question: were you playing CS:GO before Shattered Web to experience its impact and agree/disagree with us? Tell us in the comments!
