CS:GO update adds sound changes

A new CS:GO update has officially gone live and while last week's update was mainly directed towards a few interesting map changes, this week's update kicks into gear a new theme of planned sound changes to the game.

With a mention of progressing "through the rest of the arsenal over time," the developers have tweaked gun noises in the Heavy category first, targeting the Negev, M249, and MAG-7.

In addition, a new sound cue for shooting with low ammo will play. However, most importantly, the smoke sound has been tweaked in order to be more distinct from the defuse sound, which should increase the rarity of "ninja defuses."

The sound changes are what matter most to us but these also can't hurt

For more casual and cosmetic fans of the game, a new Gamma case has launched which brings with it new knife finishes and weapon skins.

Finally, the Prime Matchmaking Beta is now playable, meaning that players who have linked their telephone numbers to their CS:GO account can presumably enjoy higher quality matchmaking services.

The full changelog for the update can be found below:

[CS:GO]

• Added new Gamma weapon case featuring 17 community-created weapon finishes and all-new knife finishes.
• Operation Wildfire Access Pass is no longer available for purchase.

[XP]

• New CS:GO players will get a significant earned XP boost multiplier in Recruit and Private Ranks.
• Competitive matchmaking for new CS:GO players is now unlocked sooner, as soon as they rank up from Recruit to Private Rank 2.

[PRIME BETA UPDATE]

• CS:GO accounts will be Prime if they have verified their phone number and achieved at least Lieutenant Rank 21 or have earned a Service Medal.
• Prime accounts can now select to search only for other prime accounts in competitive matchmaking.
• When matchmaking with a party lobby, all party members must be Prime to have the Prime-only option available.

[SOUND]

• New sound cue for shooting with low ammo.
• Upgraded sound fidelity, reduced distortion for Mag7, M249, Negev.
• New smoke sound to reduce interference with bomb defuse sound.
• New sound for text chat messages in party lobby.

[MISC]

• In classic game modes any money earned by a player mid-round will no longer be available for spending during the same round (i.e., SMG purchases are no longer possible during competitive pistol rounds).
• Suicide or disconnect compensation will no longer be awarded in warmup or during freezetime period.
• When controlling the bot and surviving round running out of time, the controlling player is now eligible to receive end of round money.
• Removed a legacy 2.5 seconds spawn grace period for players who reconnect to the round after freezetime is over.
• Increased upper limit on possible mp_halftime_duration values to 5 minutes.
• Added server convar sv_spec_post_death_additional_time that allows adding a delay for spectators between the death of a spec target and the switch to a new target.
• The convar sv_alltalk has been replaced with sv_talk_enemy_dead and sv_talk_enemy_alive.
• Classic Casual now defaults to team-restrict communication for living players.

[MAC]

• Fixed appearance of fonts in the community browser and console.
• Fixed some bugs with setting fullscreen resolution.
• Set all Mac players to use Raw Mouse Input by default since this is a better experience for most players. Players can manually revert to not using raw mouse input if that is what they prefer.

stich writes for HLTV.org and can be found on Twitter