On July 15, 2025, Valve released "Season Two: Episode One", the update that started Premier Season Three in Counter-Strike 2. Overpass came back into the Active Duty map pool in place of Anubis, and three gameplay changes all landed on the Counter-Terrorist side: a faster-spreading incendiary, a weaker MP9 and a new team award. The same post introduced Trade Protected Items, which lets players reverse their CS2 item trades from the last seven days.
What the update added
| Area | Change |
|---|---|
| Premier | Season Three began; same medal rules as Season Two |
| Map pool | Overpass in, Anubis out of Active Duty |
| Incendiary grenade | Fire spreads more rapidly |
| MP9 | More recoil, much less accurate while jumping |
| CT economy | $50 team award for each Terrorist eliminated, in Competitive modes |
| Steam trading | CS2 item trades reversible for seven days |
HLTV noted that the map change came a week before the start of IEM Cologne, and that it was the first change to the competitive pool since Train replaced Vertigo at the start of 2025.
Season Two ends, Season Three begins
Valve had announced on July 2 that Season Two would end on July 14. To earn the Season Two Medal you needed 25 Season Two Premier wins and a visible CS Rating when the season closed. According to the Counter-Strike Wiki's patch log, Premier matchmaking was switched off on July 14 and came back with this update the next day. Our Season Two article covers that season.
Valve's post set out the Season Three medal rules, which carried over unchanged:
- Colour: set by the highest CS Rating you reach during the season.
- Bars: one for every 25 wins, up to five.
- Eligibility: an account in good standing, 25 Premier match wins and an active CS Rating at the end of the season.
Overpass returns, Anubis leaves
Overpass had been out of Active Duty since April 2024, when Dust II took its place (see the April 2024 update). HLTV pointed out that this was the first time Anubis had left Active Duty since joining the competitive map pool in November 2022.
After the swap, the seven Active Duty maps were Ancient, Dust II, Inferno, Mirage, Nuke, Overpass and Train. Valve kept working on Overpass after its return. On July 28 it added breakable glass to the B doors, adjusted the Heaven railing, changed the angle of the truck on A site, blocked the view from the truckbed to the stairs and made several smaller changes; the next day it fixed clipping on the T fountain stairs.
Gameplay changes for the CT side
Incendiary grenade. The release notes say only that its fire "spreads more rapidly". Valve's post gave the reason: the fire now occupies "space rapidly to counter rushing Ts." In May 2024 Valve had cut the incendiary's price and reduced its duration and the area its flames cover (Fire Sale article); HLTV described the new change as partly compensating for that nerf.
MP9. The notes list "increased recoil magnitude and substantially reduced jumping accuracy". In practice the spray is harder to control and jumping shots are much less reliable; Valve's post called it "a bit of a nerf".
CT team award. In Competitive modes, Counter-Terrorists now get a $50 team award for each Terrorist eliminated in a round, whether they win or lose. Valve's summary: "the more you win and the closer you keep your losses, the more you'll have to spend." If the CTs kill three Ts in a round they lose, each of them still gets an extra $150 on top of the usual loss bonus.
Trade Protected Items
The second half of Valve's post was about trading. "In the unlikely event that you lose control of your account or were the target of a scam by a bad actor," Valve wrote, "you may reverse all Counter-Strike item trades from the last 7 days." The option sits on the Trade History page of your Steam account.
In short, as Steam's FAQ describes it:
- Every CS2 item you receive in a trade arrives at once and can be used in game, but for seven days it is "Trade Protected" and "cannot be consumed, modified, or transferred", including into a Storage Unit. That rules out trading it on, listing it on the Market, applying stickers to it or, for a case, opening it.
- A reversal is all or nothing: it undoes every trade containing protected items from the last seven days and returns all of those items to their previous owners.
- The account that reverses can't trade or use the Community Market for 30 days. Its trade partners are unaffected.
- CS2 items are no longer subject to trade holds or escrow, so the waiting period now comes after delivery instead of before it.
A reversal only moves items, never money, so a payment made outside Steam doesn't come back. Our guide to Steam trade protection explains the rules in full, and what happens when a trade is reversed covers what each side can do afterwards.
Hotspawn reported on July 16, the day after launch, that many trading platforms had temporarily suspended operations while they worked out how to handle reversals.
Where it stands now
Premier Season Four began on January 21, 2026 and brought Anubis back in place of Train. Overpass stayed in Active Duty for almost a year, until Cache replaced it on July 8, 2026 at the start of Season Five. Valve's later notes haven't reversed the MP9, incendiary or CT award changes from this update.
Trade protection is still in place for CS2 items. The previous update covered here is the Warhammer 40,000 sticker capsules from May 2025, which came out alongside the Austin Major items; the next is Ancient's night version and the Deluge music kits in August 2025.
Sources
- Season Two: Episode One — Counter-Strike 2 news
- Counter-Strike 2 Update, July 15, 2025 — Counter-Strike 2 news
- Counter-Strike 2 patches/July 15, 2025 — Counter-Strike Wiki
- Overpass replaces Anubis in Active Duty map pool — HLTV.org
- Trade Protected Items — Steam Support
- CS2 Trade Protection Update: Is this the death of cash trading? — Hotspawn
- BLAST.tv Austin Major Champions — Counter-Strike 2 news
