On January 21, 2026, Valve released "The Fourth Season" for Counter-Strike 2, starting Premier Season Four. Anubis returned to the Active Duty map pool in place of Train, with a reworked layout. The MP7, MP5-SD and PP-Bizon got cheaper, five community maps replaced four, two new collections joined the weekly care package, and the Armory gained a Limited Edition AK-47, the Aphrodite.
What the update added
| Area | Change |
|---|---|
| Premier | Season Four began; Anubis in, Train out |
| Competitive | Per-map Skill Groups reset after a change to the underlying rank values |
| Weapons | MP7 and MP5-SD: more damage, less fall-off, $100 cheaper; PP-Bizon $100 cheaper |
| Movement | Jumping and landing reworked, with subtick landing |
| Community maps | Warden, Stronghold, Alpine, Sanctum and Poseidon in; Golden, Palacio, Agency and Rooftop out |
| Weekly care package | Harlequin and Achroma collections in; four older collections out |
| Armory | New Limited Edition AK-47 finish, Aphrodite |
Premier Season Four
The medal rules carried over from the previous season. Valve's post says the colour of your Season Four Medal matches the highest CS Rating you reach during the season, and the bars show total wins, one bar for every 25, up to five. To be eligible you need an account in good standing, 25 Premier match wins and an active CS Rating when the season ends. The season before is covered in our article on Premier Season Three.
Competitive mode got a quieter reset. Valve adjusted the underlying per-map rank values and expired everyone's per-map Skill Groups, which reappear once you have won the required number of matches on each map.
Anubis returns
Anubis had left Active Duty when Season Three began in July 2025. Valve described it as "back after a short vacation", and the release notes list five layout changes:
- The bridge drop moved near Mid Doors.
- Mid Doors now open the other way round.
- A new hole connects Connector, which the notes call E-box, to the back of B.
- The crates on Bombsite A moved up the steps onto Walkway.
- Scaffolding was added to a pillar on Bombsite A.
The next day's patch fixed clipping, a water physics bug and the radar, which was updated to match the new layout. On February 4 Valve adjusted player clipping around the new drop and grenade clipping around the new hole and the old drop.
Weapons, movement and sound
The MP7 and MP5-SD got slightly more damage, slightly less damage fall-off and a $100 price cut. The PP-Bizon also became $100 cheaper, with no change to its damage.
Jumping was reworked. Landing time is now calculated with subtick precision, jumping and landing no longer affect stamina, and the landing speed penalty depends only on landing time. A jump pressed within a set window around the landing counts as a successful bunnyhop unless it was penalised for jump spam. Private servers can restore the old behaviour with sv_legacy_jump. A day later, Valve made landing vertical velocity affect the landing speed penalty again, similar to the legacy stamina system.
Other changes in the patch:
- Map guides can be loaded in online Casual and Retakes games from the Esc menu.
- Sound: lower audio output latency, new knife draw and inspect sounds, no more overlapping draw sounds when switching quickly, and knife hits that sound different for primary and secondary attacks and for front and back stabs.
- Base guns: higher material fidelity on 15 default weapons, including the AK-47, AWP, USP-S and Desert Eagle.
The January 22 patch also fixed an issue that had led a small number of users to receive a VAC ban by mistake, and Valve said those bans had been reversed.
Community maps
Golden, Palacio, Agency and Rooftop left every mode. Five maps came in:
- Warden (Competitive, Casual, Deathmatch): a map set on a former prison island, by Almaas, Thomas and Catfood, according to its Workshop page.
- Stronghold (Competitive, Casual, Deathmatch): set in Gibraltar, according to its Workshop page; Valve's post mentions its "winding paths".
- Alpine (Competitive, Casual, Deathmatch): a hostage rescue map set in a luxury mountain resort.
- Sanctum (Wingman): a ruined temple under reconstruction; Valve's post mentions its "active volcano".
- Poseidon (Wingman): a resort on a Greek island.
A note on the name: Valve's announcement lists the third Competitive map as "Warren", but the release notes say Warden, and so do the follow-up notes of January 26, which link to the Workshop item titled Warden. "Warren" is a typo in the announcement.
Harlequin and Achroma
The weekly care package gained two collections, which Valve teased with "One has color and the other one does not." Harlequin is the colourful one, with 19 skins topped by the M4A1-S | Party Animal; Achroma is black and white, with 20 skins topped by the AWP | The End. Both stop at Classified. To make room, Valve removed Safehouse, Dust 2, the 2018 Nuke Collection and the 2018 Inferno Collection from the drop list. Full lists are in our Harlequin and Achroma article.
AK-47 | Aphrodite
The Armory got a new Limited Edition item. Valve's post describes the AK-47 | Aphrodite as having "mother-of-pearl accents and amber patina", and says it "varies in both wear and pattern", so two copies at different floats or pattern numbers can look quite different. Our Armory explainer covers how Armory items are bought with credits.
It followed the Desert Eagle | Heat Treated from October 2024, the XM1014 | Solitude from March 2025 and the M4A1-S | Solitude from August 2025.
Where it stands now
Season Four ended when Premier Season Five began on July 8, 2026. That update added Cache to Active Duty and removed Overpass, so Anubis kept its place. It also removed Warden, Stronghold, Alpine and Sanctum from all game modes; Poseidon was not on that list. The previous update covered here is the Sticker Slab update of November 2025.
Sources
- The Fourth Season — Counter-Strike 2 news
- Counter-Strike 2 Update, January 21, 2026 — Counter-Strike 2 news
- Counter-Strike 2 patches/January 21, 2026 — Counter-Strike Wiki
- CS2 Premier Season 4: Anubis, SMG changes, and new skins — esports.gg
- Warden — Steam Workshop
- Stronghold — Steam Workshop
- Alpine — Steam Workshop
