Operation Bloodhound (2015): Falchion Knife, profile ranks and Gods and Monsters

Operation Bloodhound was CS:GO's sixth operation, running from May 26 to October 1, 2015. It introduced profile ranks and the weekly drop tied to them, gave its campaigns a story, and handed pass holders drops from six operation collections, three of them new. It also brought the Falchion Case and the Falchion Knife. The operations overview places it in the series; this article goes into the detail.

Dates and the Access Pass

Bloodhound launched on May 26, 2015. Valve's notes gave September 30 as the end date, and the closing update shipped on October 1. In its farewell post Valve called it "CS:GO's most-played operation to date", with tens of millions of hours played.

Valve's operation page listed the Operation Bloodhound Access Pass at $5.99, a price PCGamesN also reported. According to the launch notes it included:

• The upgradable Operation Bloodhound Challenge Coin, shown on your profile and in the scoreboard.
• The Operation Bloodhound Journal, with friends leaderboards for Active Duty and operation maps.
• Two new campaigns with 62 missions, rewarding XP.
• Earned weapon drops from the operation's exclusive collections.
• Exclusive access to the Falchion Case.

The maps

Six maps formed the Operation Bloodhound map group, free for everyone on official servers: Log, Rails, Resort and Zoo were new, while Agency and Season returned from earlier operations. Valve's announcement set the scenes, from a long-range fight at a logging facility on Log to a night-time rail yard on Rails. Agency was the only hostage rescue map; the rest were bomb defusal.

Profile ranks and weekly drops

One change reached every player, pass or not. Bloodhound introduced Profile Ranks: you earned XP on official servers, from rounds won in Competitive and from your score in other modes, plus extra XP from missions. Your first rank-up each week rewarded a weapon drop.

For pass holders, that weekly weapon came from the operation drop list instead of the normal pool:

The three new sets each have a clear theme. Gods and Monsters draws on Greek myth, with the M4A4 | Poseidon below the Medusa and the M4A1-S | Icarus Fell below that. The Rising Sun leans on Japanese imagery, and Chop Shop takes its name from car culture, with the Hot Rod and Twilight Galaxy sharing its top grade. None of them was ever sold in a case. They dropped only to pass holders in Bloodhound, Wildfire and Hydra, and no later operation used that list, which is why the operations overview singles them out as scarce.

Story campaigns

Bloodhound's two campaigns were the first with a storyline. According to the Counter-Strike Wiki, Marksman was the Counter-Terrorist campaign, briefed by Sebastien Hennequet, and Revolution the Terrorist one, briefed by Valeria Jenner of the Phoenix Connexion. Both revolved around the terrorist Chase Turner, which explains Valve's closing tally of "many thousands of Turners assassinated."

Missions now paid XP rather than items. Valve also added two mission types, Assassination and Guardian Co-op, and challenge missions awarded stars for the coin: the wiki gives 9 stars for silver and 14 for gold.

The launch update made a few changes for everyone too. Casual rounds were cut from three minutes to 2:15, and warmup grew from 30 to 90 seconds.

The Falchion Case and the Falchion Knife

The Falchion Case held 16 community-designed finishes and a new knife. Valve described the Falchion as "really more of a folding sword than a knife" and said it could only be found in this case. During the operation only pass holders could receive the case; Valve's October 1 update made it "available as a drop for all players."

The Counter-Strike Wiki points out a hidden detail on the Negev | Loudmouth: a smiley face under the feed cover, visible when you reload. The Falchion itself launched in the original knife finishes. It later received Chroma finishes in the Spectrum cases and Gamma finishes in the Operation Riptide case, along with the other knives of 2014 to 2016; the knife guide compares the models.

What Bloodhound changed

Weekly drops tied to levelling. The first-rank-of-the-week drop outlived the operation. In CS2 it survives as the weekly reward for levelling up, explained in the weekly drops guide.

A fixed operation drop list. Bloodhound's six collections became the standard pass-holder drop list for Wildfire and Hydra, then stopped. For skins like the AWP | Medusa or M4A1-S | Hot Rod, a trade-up contract is now the only way to create a new copy, as the trade-up guide explains.

Story and co-op. Story-driven campaigns and Guardian missions returned in Wildfire and Hydra, and Guardian missions were still part of Operation Riptide's weekly cards in 2021.

A new knife in the case. Bloodhound was the second operation, after Breakout and its Butterfly, whose case debuted a knife model. Wildfire's Bowie Knife then made it three of the four operations from Breakout to Wildfire.

Sources

• Release Notes for 5/26/2015 — Counter-Strike blog
• The Hunter and the Hunted — Counter-Strike blog
• Operation Bloodhound — counter-strike.net
• Release Notes for 10/1/2015 — Counter-Strike blog
• The end of Operation Bloodhound — Counter-Strike blog
• Counter-Strike: Global Offensive forefronts community maps in Operation Bloodhound — PCGamesN
• Operation Bloodhound — Counter-Strike Wiki
• Falchion Case — Counter-Strike Wiki