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M4A4 inspect WithBG

Counter-Terrorist inspecting a M4A4

The weapons in the Counter-Strike series form the basic framework for the games' combat gameplay.

There are a total of 25 weapons in most Counter-Strike games, and another 19 weapons added in Global Offensive, 10 of which are replacements of old weapons, giving a net total of 9 new weapons with wholly unique properties and roles and a combined total of 34 weapons.

Overview

Weapons are central to the combat in the Counter-Strike series, which players use to damage each other's health and kill enemy players to obtain kill rewards, gain tactical advantages, or progress to team elimination round victory.

In most games, a player may only carry one primary weapon, one secondary weapon, and a melee weapon.

In Deleted Scenes only, the player can carry more than one primary and secondary weapon. However, unlike in Half-Life, if the player already has that weapon and the player attempts to pick up the same weapon, it won't give the player ammo unless the first same weapon does not have maximum ammo. In that case, it will give the player the same new weapon with whatever ammo is in the new same weapon.

At the start of the game's first round, all players will spawn with their knife and their team-based spawn pistol. For rounds after that, if a player had lived through the previous round, they will retain their equipment they are equipped with when the previous round ends, and will receive a spawn pistol if they lack a secondary weapon when the previous round ends. If they died in the previous round, they will spawn with their knife and their spawn pistol.

Players can buy new weapons from the buy menu that can be opened when standing inside the buy zone, costing money that they had earned.

Most weapons can be dropped and picked up, except for knives and in special situations where the game does not allow a normal weapon to be dropped or picked up. A player's death will cause their equipped primary and secondary weapon to be dropped. In Global Offensive, it is also possible to directly replace a weapon on the player's hands by aiming at a weapon on the ground and pressing the interaction key (USE is bound to E by default).

Inspecting

Introduced alongside the Arms Deal in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, inspecting was added to give the player the ability to view details on their weapons in-game. Excluding the Gold Knife, all weapons can be inspected, and all equipment cannot be inspected. Inspecting weapons in-game is not to be confused with inspecting weapons from the player's inventory.

In-game, the USE key when the weapon is in an idle state will play an animation of the player inspecting the weapon by looking at all sides before returning to the idle state. This animation is clientside and only visible to the player, Spectators, and GOTV viewers in first person. No corresponding third-person animation exists, thus the inspection is unseen by other players.

The player can perform normal actions with the weapon at any point during the animation (such as reloading, firing, scoping in, or switching to other weapons), immediately interrupting the inspection animation to perform the normal action.

For most weapons, the weapon cannot be inspected unless the weapon is idle. Unlike other weapons, shotguns can be inspected while reloading, and doing so will interrupt the reload. After the inspection is finished (without being canceled by firing), the reload animation will resume.

Scoped weapons cannot be inspected while looking through their scope.

Skins

Main article: Skins

Global Offensive added new cosmetic features to weapons, primarily in the form of skins. They do not impact gameplay and are purely cosmetic.

Some variants include a StatTrak™ device, a counter that shows the total amount of kills acquired with the weapon by the current owner.

Gameplay

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Hitscan

All weapons are hitscan to simulate the fast and straight travel of bullets in real life, meaning that when the player fires, the game immediately calculates its landing position and determine if it hit a target or not, and how much damage it dealt. All weapons have damage dropoff at a distance, and will disappear entirely if the shot travels too far.[1][2]

Damage

Weapons deal damage upon hitting another player. The damage dealt to the target is dependent on several factors, including the weapon's base damage, the damage dropoff, the hitbox that is hit, effects of bullet penetration, effects of armor penetration, and the server settings for friendly fire in the event that the target is a teammate.

Headshot Multiplier

Headshot Multiplier modifies the Damage multiplier when shooting the head. Introduced on the September 21, 2021 update for Global Offensive, this modification was added to buff the base damage of the M4A1-S whilst keeping headshot damage the same. It was also used to reduce base damage of the Desert Eagle, whilst maintaining the lethality of the headshot.

Rate of Fire (CycleTime)

Rate of Fire shows how fast the weapon can fire, while CycleTime refers to time between 2 shots.

In Global Offensive, there are 4 featured CycleTime as seconds. The smaller the value, the faster the firing process will be.

  1. Standard CycleTime: Used with normal weapons & secondary attachment enabled.
  2. Burst CycleTime: Used when the weapon features burst mode, like FAMAS & Glock-18. CycleTime when in burst mode will automatically fire a 3-round burst unless firing process is interceded by either switching, dropping the weapon or simply the prefab has a large value of time between shots. Time between shots features time between 2 burst shots. Burst CycleTime will refresh time between shots if firing before the burst process is completed, which is used for weapons featuring both automatic & semi-automatic.
  3. Alternative CycleTime: Used when the weapon is a revolver, like the R8 Revolver. Revolvers require a weapon-preparing animation before shooting. Animation time on process can be very small value before shots are fired. The Revolver can also fan as double-action for alternative Rate of Fire. Fanning requires secondary firing animation, otherwise will use standard one while primary fire cannot be used.
  4. Zoomed CycleTime: CycleTime when using scope, featured by scopable rifles & sniper-rifles.

Generic Formula for Rounds Per Minute: 1 : (<Rounds Per Minute> : 60) or 60 : <Rounds Per Minute>

Generic Formula for Rounds Per Second: 1 : <Rounds Per Second>

Aiming Weapon Scope (Zooming)

Basically, using Weapon Scope is aiming to the farther (or closer) range for accurracy improvement.

Based on developer console findings and the items_game.txt, zooming is changing player base field of view to view at specific distances.

  • Base player FOV is 90.
  • zoom levels determine the weapon's number of aim options. As already listed, zooming is changing FOV to view at specific distances, so this must be any positive integer between 0 and n.
  • zoom fov changes the default FOV value in the game to the value set accordingly to support aiming from a distance (value under 90) or from up close (value above 90). Based on zoom levels, it should be "zoom fov i" (where i represents the value). The FOV changing value must be higher than 0.
  • zoom time is the time to change HUD aiming or animation, in seconds. Note that zoom time 0 is required because it represents the duration of exiting scoped mode (i.e aiming) from n to 0. During "zoom fov <1 to n>", zoom time is also should be "zoom time 1", "zoom time 2",... "zoom time n". Again, time value must be higher than 0, at least a positive decimal value.
  • Weapons will play their zoom_in_sound until the n~th time it will play zoom_out_sound when no longer aiming.
  • Aiming through either animation or the HUD, can have zoom levels beyond 1. Animations work best at 1, whereas beyond that it may cause problems.

Armor Ratio

Armor Ratio determines the amount of damage dealt to health and armor. The value will have to be divided by 2 to reflect the percentage of damage dealt. The value that the armor absorbs must be from 0 to less than 2, if it is above 2, it will only absorb 1% but will receive additional damage corresponding to the value divided by 2.

If the value is 2, the armor will not absorb damage, otherwise if the value is 0, the armor will absorb 50% of the damage dealt & take 0% health damage. From above 0 to less than 2, the damage dealt will be doubled and divided by the corresponding value, and the hitbox factors in the damage dealt.

Afterwards, the damage deducted will continue to decrease depending on the armor below:

Kevlar + Helmet absorb ~37,5% given damage & armor will take ~62,5% absorbed damage.

Heavy Assault Suit reduces damage by twice the amount of Kevlar + Helmet, but will also recieve twice its armor damage. When survived with 0% armor to next round, player will be back to standard featured team character on the map.

Range

1 unit in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is 1 inch, 1 inch is 0,0254 meters. On reaching the maximum range, the bullet or tasing round(s) will disappear.

Range Modifier

range modifier determines damage percentage after the bullet reaching 500 inches (aka 500 units).

Max Player Speed & Its Alternative

Weapon speed is calculated is Units per second (aka inches per second real life). Alternative speed (max player speed alt) determines speed while using secondary functions (sans suppressing weapons). Without these speed values, stat reuses the default speed which is 1 inch per second.

Ammunition

Main article: Ammunition

Weapons need ammunition to fire. Each weapon has a designated amount of loaded (primary clip size) and reserved ammunition (primary reserve ammo max). When the loaded ammunition runs out, the weapon cannot be fired until it is reloaded.

Recoil & Its Alternative

Main article: Recoil

Recoil causes prolonged periods of fire to become increasingly decentralized from the player's crosshair aim as well as the player's point of view to "bounce" upwards. Alternatives refer to weapons using secondary fire.

Inaccuracy & Its Alternative

Main article: Inaccuracy

Inaccuracy causes a weapon to have a natural and uncontrollable random angle of deviation from the player's crosshair. Inaccuracy varies depending on the weapon and the player's current action. Alternatives refer to weapons using secondary fire.

Bullet Penetration

Main article: Bullet Penetration

Depending on the surface hit and the weapon's own penetration properties, a bullet can continue to travel and damage targets beyond a surface after hitting a surface.

Aimpunch

In Global Offensive, when a player is shot in the torso, abdomen, pelvis or head hitbox their screen and aim will violently shake upwards, simulating the effects of being disoriented from a bullet injury. This is known as aimpunch. Given a target without armor, hitting the player in the legs and arms apply no aimpunch, hitting the torso, abdomen or pelvis applies moderate aimpunch, while hitting the player in the head applies the most severe.

Purchasing the Kevlar Vest reduces aimpunch to the torso, abdomen and pelvis to 5% of its original strength, and purchasing the helmet nullifies aimpunch to the head.[3]

Tagging

Main article: Tagging

After being hit by a bullet, the target is slowed down. The amount of speed reduction is dependent on the weapon used and the weapon the target is wielding.

Tracers & Its Alternatives

In Global Offensive, some weapons also fire tracers. The tracer appears as a small white flash that travels along the trajectory of the bullet. This is useful for the targets to identify the position of the attacking enemy and quickly retaliate against them.

Tracers is represented by tracer frequency, shows tracers between ~n~ shots. A value of 0 means weapon fire will leave no tracers. Non-tracers defaultly are used by suppressor-attached weapons.

Tracers are featured by flash file from muzzle_flash_effect_1st_person & muzzle_flash_effect_3rd_person. There're also its alternatives for secondary functions like "muzzle_flash_effect_1st_person_alt" & "muzzle_flash_effect_3rd_person_alt". Without alternatives, weapon will use the default.

Alternatives are presented by "tracer frequency alt", shows tracers while using the Secondary Fire functions.

Firing Sound

Different weapons have different firing sounds and different loudness to them. Silencers generally make the biggest impact to weapon firing noise.

In Global Offensive, loud mechanical clicks are played alongside the firing sound when firing the final shots in a magazine, giving away that the weapon's magazine is emptying.

According to game_sounds_weapons.txt, silenced weapons don't have distant sounds. The difference of Silencers with none lies in this position.

"play_distant_version_1" is the cvar that located under "operator_stacks" & "start_stack" scripts, must be present to be able to concatenate the script in the braces below. In which, "entry_name" "<distant sound>" is the command that will pronounce distant sound, which will be setting up later with or without same base sound presets.

Base sounds can be found in each weapon visual on their prefabs. "sound_single_shot" refers to firing sound, "sound_special1" in turn refers to the secondary firing sound while using secondary functions; without "sound_special1", the weapon uses the default instead.

Secondary Fire

Some weapons (and sometimes equipment too) have a secondary fire ability (activated by pressing MOUSE2 by default). Secondary fire is usually a weapon's specialty or a different trait of the weapon.

List of secondary fire functions:

Weapons

On the buy menu, weapons are categorized by their types. In older games, there are five categories on the buy menu for weapons: Pistols, Shotguns, SMG, Rifles, and Machine Guns. In Global Offensive, Shotguns and Machine Guns have been further combined into one "Heavy" category. For categorization purposes, this wiki will categorize weapons from a real-life standpoint, loosely applying the categories of the original Counter-Strike.

Melee

The only melee weapon featured in the Counter-Strike games is the basic knife. The knife only works in very close range, but it is devastating, has infinite ammunition and can score silent kills. They are given on spawn and under most circumstances cannot be dropped. In Global Offensive, after the January 27, 2016 update, knives can be dropped in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, if the command mp_drop_knife_enable is set to 1 (enabled).

The Machete, once planned to be a usable weapon, is seen on AI-controlled Terrorists throughout the campaign of Counter-Strike: Condition Zero Deleted Scenes. This usable version was also cut from the original Counter-Strike and Condition Zero.

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive introduced cosmetic knives that function identically to the basic knife but can be only received by unboxing. In addition, there is a Gold Knife exclusive to the Arms Race gamemode, though it only has a graphical difference from the basic knife.

Pistols

Pistols (also known as handguns or sidearms) are the secondary weapons in the Counter-Strike series, as well as the first weapons that can be used at the beginning of a match or upon respawning after death.

Generally, pistols are weak when compared to primary weapons and have a low magazine capacity. However, they are accurate, with little recoil and comparably fast reload times. Also it is faster to pull them out rather than reload any primary weapon due to their fast draw animation. Their cheap prices also make them good weapons to use on eco rounds.

Players will run at default speed using any pistol, Global Offensive excluded.

Shotguns

Shotguns are a type of primary weapon featured in the Counter-Strike series. Instead of firing a single hitscan bullet, they fire several hitscan pellets in one shot that combine to deal high damage. The pellets in a shot are scattered, and spread at a distance, restricting their effectiveness to close range. They are fairly cheap, costing less than most rifles.

There are only two shotguns in Counter-Strike prior to Global Offensive: the Leone 12 Gauge Super, utilizing a pump action firing mode, and the Leone YG1265 Auto Shotgun that fires in semi-automatic. Both shotguns suffer from heavy speed and range reduction, as well as being useless at long range, but excel at close-quarters combat where they are potentially devastating. In Global Offensive, the Leone 12 Gauge Super was replaced by the Nova, and two other shotguns were introduced. Most shotguns cannot fire underwater.

SMG

SMG, short for submachine guns, are a type of primary weapon featured in the Counter-Strike series. They are very cheap, costing below $2500.

Most submachine guns have a fast rate of fire, little to no speed reduction, and low to moderate recoil, making them very good for short-distance combat. Unfortunately, submachine guns are outclassed by rifles at long range because the latter inflict more damage, are more accurate, have better armour penetration, and less damage dropoff. Nevertheless, they are still useful for cash-strapped teams.

Rifles

Assault Rifles

Assault Rifles are a type of primary weapon featured in the Counter-Strike series. The assault rifles featured in the Counter-Strike series are fairly expensive weapons with very high damage and recoil, but have relative speed reduction. Most assault rifles are equipped to fight enemy combatants at medium to long range. Some of the assault rifles have unique features such as the FAMAS's burst-fire option and the M4A1's removeable silencer.

Sniper Rifles

Sniper Rifles, as their name suggests, are made for extreme-range combat situations. In the Counter-Strike series, there are two types of sniper rifles: bolt-action sniper rifles and fully-automatic rifles (nicknamed auto-snipers). The former inflict heavy damage at the cost of punishing inaccurate users, but the latter have a faster firing rate while boasting reduced damage. The Schmidt Scout, SSG 08, and the AWP are bolt-action rifles while the Krieg 550 Commando, SCAR-20, and the G3SG1 are semi-automatic rifles. Due to their strong killing power, their price is on the higher end of the spectrum.

To discourage hipfiring and close-quarters fighting with these weapons in general, the crosshair is hidden when using these weapons.

Machine Guns

Machine Guns are a type of primary weapon featured in the Counter-Strike series. They are made for defensive or suppression combat, being extremely heavy and generally expensive weapons with fast firing rates and large magazine size. Before Global Offensive, the M249 was the only machine gun in the multiplayer Counter-Strike games and was the most expensive weapon at $5750. Eventually, the introduction of the Negev in Global Offensive brought the total number of available machine guns to two.

The M60 was expected to appear in the original Counter-Strike but was cut for unknown reasons. It later reappeared in the single-player campaign of Counter-Strike: Condition Zero Deleted Scenes.

In addition, some beta maps for Counter-Strike such as Forest and Desert feature the M2 Browning Machine Gun placement. Due to serious balance issues with the weapon, the maps featuring them are removed during development. They can still be found in some Counter-Strike custom maps, and reappeared officially in Deleted Scenes.

Flipped weapon viewmodels

Ak47

Right-handed viewmodel of AK-47 (CV-47) in Counter-Strike. Note the left-facing ejection port.

Counter-Strike is one of the earliest and most infamous examples of having weapon view models that appears to be weapons intended for left-hand use when used in right-hand mode (and vice versa).

In reality, most of the weapons featured in Counter-Strike do not have left-hand variants due to the majority of the users being right-handed. Even if they do exist, using a left-hand weapon with the right hand will cause many inconveniences, such as having the user being showered by the ejected cartridges due to the ejector port being on the left side. This can cause severe burns in real life as the ejected cartridges may fly towards the person who is using the weapon (in which this serious issue is reflected with left-handed infantry who had to wield weapons meant for right-handed individuals). This also results in extremely awkward bolt pulls in bolt-action rifles since the nondominant left hand holding the front of the weapon now needs to move back and pull the left-facing bolt back towards the user's chest.

The cause of this is due to the modeler of the weapons, Minh Le, had a preference to originally create left-handed view models instead of right-handed oness, as he is left-handed.[4] The weapon models had always been modeled correctly for right-hand use, but left-handed view models were created before right-handed view models with these correct models. Due to the majority of the players being right-handed, players were confused by the left-handed view models, so the option of flipping the view model was added. In order to save time and resources, the left-handed view model is simply mirrored for right-handed use, thus causing the aforementioned problems.

The problem repeats in Counter-Strike: Condition Zero, Counter-Strike: Source (though some weapons, such as the MAC-10, are correctly portrayed), and even in Left 4 Dead 2's International Weapons port of Source weapons. In Global Offensive, weapons are correctly shown in right-handed mode and thus the problem is fixed, although now the left-handed mode is a mirror of the right-handed one.

In a way, Counter-Strike inspired some other games to do the same, like Far Cry 2 and the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series.

Bugs

  • Sometimes in Counter-Strike and Condition Zero, there is a bug where the player can carry more than one secondary or primary weapon. (However, some maps can also grant players this ability). If this bug occurs, the fast switch for that category will be disabled and require the player to select a weapon in that list, much like in Half-Life.
    • If this bug occurs, the player cannot purchase ammo for the first weapon in that category; the player can only purchase ammo for the second weapon that they can get in the respective category. The only way to get ammo for the first weapon is by picking up a weapon from either primary or secondary. (If you have two secondary weapons, you will have to pick up a primary and vice versa (provided that the killed player doesn't have a primary weapon)). However this works only for SMGs as pistols do not use rifle/shotgun ammo. Furthermore if the player has 2 primary/secondary weapons that shares same ammo for each other, it will draw from a single ammo reserve due to sharing a cartridge, but allows to resupply both primary/secondary weapons.

Trivia

  • Weapons in retail versions of Counter-Strike would disappear if dropped on the ground when the round restarts. In the Beta, they would remain on the ground, and thus players could retrieve a firearm from a killed player in the next round.
  • If the player hits secondary fire while reloading a shotgun, the animation will pause.
  • In older betas, discarding a weapon causes it to be lost permanently.
  • Prior to Global Offensive, the player characters hold all pistols except the Elites with their support hand cupping the base of the grip, a manner known as «tea cupping». In real-life this is extremely unrecommended as it does not help retain the recoil, especially on a large-caliber pistol such as the Desert Eagle, in which case would also cause feeding issues because of its magazine's design.
  • In Source and Global Offensive, it is possible to see the inactive weapons another player is equipped with on their models:
    • The primary weapon is located on the player models' back.
      • In Global Offensive, submachine guns are not placed on the backs of the Counter-Terrorists' models. Instead, they are hung in front of their model's chest.
    • The player's knife is hung on the model's belt in Global Offensive.
    • In Source, players' secondary weapons are carried in a pistol holster.
      • Players with Dual Berettas will receive an extra pistol holster on their model's left leg. It will disappear when that player dies or has dropped the weapons.
    • In Global Offensive, Counter-Terrorists' secondary weapons are in a pistol holster on their model's right leg. Terrorists stuff it in their model's trousers from behind.
  • Most of the firearms in Counter-Strike were renamed possibly due to legal/licensing issues (e.g. the Desert Eagle becoming the Nighthawk .50C). The case continues in Source.
    • The notable exceptions include the Maverick M4A1 Carbine and M249 which are both US military designations of the Colt XM4 and FN Minimi respectively, whereas the Ingram MAC-10 retained its real-life name and company name mainly due to the fact that the company, Military Armament Corporation, that held the rights to the weapon went bankrupt in 1975.
    • In Global Offensive, most names of the firearms are now accurate, and the company names are simply omitted. However, all inscriptions bearing the company name present on weapon models are intentionally altered.
  • Regardless of the player's choice of left-handed or right-handed viewmodels, all players wield the weapons right-handed in third-person view.
  • In Global Offensive, an outdated in-game tip incorrectly instructs the player to hold the inspect key to view the animation.
  • In Global Offensive, all pump-action shotguns reuse the pump sound of the Pump Shotgun and the Chrome Shotgun from the Left 4 Dead series. Also, all weapons reuse the draw sounds from those games' weapons as well.
  • Most pistols' reloading animation involve the magazine dropping free instead of being taken out manually.
  • In Global Offensive, a magazine will be dropped to the ground (excluding most shotguns) when players reload. The magazine is visible in both first and third-person.
  • In Global Offensive, the cartridge icons representing the current number of bullets in the magazine are rifle cartridges, regardless of the weapon used.
  • Prior to Source, it was possible to fire most weapons even if their respective draw and reload animations had not completed. This was fixed in Source and Global Offensive.
    • In Global Offensive, one can «fast-draw» right before the reload animation is complete. This is done by switching to another weapon and back when the ammunition counter has changed. It doesn't speed up the reload rate for all weapons but does help to get out of scope mode without having to cycle through the zoom (this only applies to bolt-action sniper rifles).
  • In Global Offensive, bots do not purchase weapons that were added in updates. They can however use it after they were controlled by human players and the next rounds starts.
    • Furthermore, bots do not use burst fire mode for the Glock-18 nor the FAMAS in any game. However, they do use it if these weapons were set to burst mode before bots retrieved them. In CS:GO, this can be done by controlling a bot and setting the weapon to burst mode. As a note, bots with the FAMAS rifle on burst mode will have a notable advantage at long ranges due to increased accuracy.
  • Due to the way the weapons are animated and programmed in the Counter-Strike series, there are several notable discrepancies between how the weapons function in the games and real life:
    • Closed-bolt weapons do not track an extra round in the chamber.
    • Most reloads always end with a cock or tap of the bolt release, even when such an act is unnecessary.
      • Some weapons do not charge the bolt after reloading (such as the TMP and the M249 prior to Global Offensive), even when reloading from empty.
    • In some cases, weapons do not lock back when all the rounds in the magazine are fired. Examples include the UMP-45, the M4A1 and the SG552 prior to Global Offensive, most pistols and the Galil AR in Global Offensive, as well as the XM1014 in both cases. In other cases, weapons automatically lock back at the start of a reload when the weapon still has rounds remaining in the chamber. Examples of weapons that have this error are the SCAR-20 and Dual Berettas.
    • In Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, most weapons are cocked once when drawn (e.g. the slide on a pistol is pulled once, the pump on a pump-action shotgun is pumped once), but they do not eject a round when doing so.

References

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