Every Counter-Strike operation and the collections it introduced

Operations were limited-time events in CS:GO that bundled community maps, missions and exclusive items behind a paid pass. Eleven ran between 2013 and 2022, and several of the most collected skins and knives in CS2 trace back to one of them. Here is what each operation brought, and why their items behave differently on the market.

How operations worked

The idea started with maps. Valve launched Operation Payback in April 2013 to put popular Steam Workshop maps on official servers and pay their authors a share of pass sales. Buying a pass also gave you a challenge coin, a profile badge that upgraded from bronze to silver to gold as you played. Operation Hydra later added a diamond tier.

Over time, operations became one of Valve's main vehicles for new content. Passes came to include missions, an operation journal for tracking stats, extra weekly drops from operation-only collections, and access to a new weapon case. From 2019 the format changed again: missions awarded stars, which were spent on a battle pass track in Shattered Web and in a star shop in Broken Fang and Riptide.

The early operations (2013–2014)

Payback (April 25, 2013) was purely about maps: seven community maps in casual play plus the coin. No weapon finishes came with it.

Bravo (September 19, 2013) added items for the first time. The Bravo Case, home of the AK-47 | Fire Serpent, could drop for anyone during the operation, and pass holders got extra case drops. A second set, the Alpha Collection, dropped only to pass holders.

Phoenix (February 20, 2014) made its case, which includes the AWP | Asiimov, exclusive to coin holders while the operation ran. When it ended on June 11, 2014, Valve opened Phoenix Case drops to all players.

Breakout (July 1, 2014) made the operation maps free for everyone and moved the value into the pass. Pass holders got missions, mission rewards from three new map collections (Baggage, Cobblestone and Overpass), and the Breakout Case, which introduced the Butterfly Knife.

Vanguard (November 11, 2014) replaced individual mission drops with campaigns, chains of missions that rewarded extra Vanguard Cases or weapon drops. Two campaigns came with the pass, and two more, Maghreb and Eurasia, were sold as optional extras.

Bloodhound, Wildfire and Hydra (2015–2017)

Bloodhound (May 26, 2015) introduced profile ranks and the weekly weapon drop on your first rank-up. Pass holders received that drop from operation collections instead of the normal pool: Cobblestone, Cache, Overpass and three new Valve-made sets, Gods and Monsters, The Rising Sun and Chop Shop. Pass holders also had exclusive access to the Falchion Case and its new Falchion Knife.

Wildfire (February 17, 2016) brought back a rebuilt Nuke and gave coin holders the Wildfire Case with the new Bowie Knife. Its weapon drops came from the same six collections.

Hydra (May 23, 2017) added weekly event modes, including Wingman, a 2v2 mode on single-bombsite maps, and the Hydra Case, whose special items were gloves rather than knives. It was the last operation to use the Bloodhound-era drop list.

Those three Valve-made collections show why operation items tend to be scarce. They only ever dropped to pass holders during these operations, and according to the Counter-Strike Wiki they have not been available as drops since Operation Shattered Web. For skins like the AWP | Medusa and M4A4 | Poseidon from Gods and Monsters, or the M4A1-S | Hot Rod from Chop Shop, the only way to create a new copy today is a trade-up contract; otherwise you buy one from another player.

Battle pass and star shop (2019–2022)

After a gap of more than two years, Shattered Web (November 18, 2019) arrived with the first equippable agents, characters you choose for each side, and a battle pass track. It added the Norse, St. Marc and Canals collections, and the Shattered Web Case introduced four knives: the Paracord, Survival, Nomad and Skeleton.

Broken Fang (December 3, 2020) swapped the fixed track for a shop where you spent stars on what you wanted. Its case, which includes the M4A1-S | Printstream, carried a new set of gloves as special items, and the shop offered random items from the Control, Havoc and Ancient collections. It also debuted the Ancient map, Retakes and a Premier mode.

Riptide (September 21, 2021) added short competitive matches of up to 16 rounds, four new weapon collections, and the Riptide Case with Gamma Doppler knives as its special items. It ended in February 2022, and it remains the last operation in the series.

Here is every operation case at a glance. "The original five knives" are the Bayonet, Flip, Gut, Karambit and M9 Bayonet that launched with the first weapon case in 2013.

Operations and CS2

CS2 has not had an operation. Valve's release notes since launch contain no operation, and the closest equivalent is the Armory, added on October 2, 2024: a pass that earns credits as you gain XP, spent on new collections, charms, stickers and cases. HLTV described it as the first operation-sized update for CS2, but it has no missions, campaigns or event modes. The Armory explainer covers how it works.

For collectors, the operation era leaves a clear lesson: items that were only available through a time-limited pass tend to have a fixed supply once the event ends. When you look at an operation skin, check its collection and whether it still drops before judging its price.

Sources

• 4/25 Update: Operation Payback is LIVE — Counter-Strike blog
• The Rise of Operation Phoenix — Counter-Strike blog
• Release Notes for 5/26/2015 (Operation Bloodhound) — Counter-Strike blog
• Operations — Counter-Strike Wiki
• Operation Riptide — counter-strike.net
• "The Armory" update adds pass with gun charms, 100+ items — HLTV.org