Weapon Skins

Finish, weapon and collection

A skin is a cosmetic finish assigned to a supported weapon or knife model. Its name and design do not change the weapon’s rate of fire, damage, recoil, accuracy or movement. The same weapon can have many named finishes, while a collection groups finishes that share a map theme, release theme or container pool.

A case is a container and a collection is a group of related items; they are not interchangeable terms. A case’s contents, excluding special rare items, are associated with a collection, while other collections may be organized by a map or a broader theme. Collection membership matters for cataloguing and Trade Up Contract eligibility. See Collections and Weapon Cases.

Grades and inventory qualities

Finish grade describes an item’s rarity tier within its pool. The sequence ranges from Consumer Grade through Industrial Grade, Mil-Spec Grade, Restricted, Classified and Covert. Rare Special (★) identifies special items such as knives and gloves. Contraband is a discontinued grade. The wiki’s color names—Common, Uncommon, Rare, Mythical, Legendary, Ancient, Exceedingly Rare and Immortal—are labels paired with those tiers, not combat ranks. A higher grade signals rarity, not improved weapon performance or a guaranteed market price.

Inventory border quality is a separate label from grade. Most ordinary weapon finishes have a white border; Rare Special (★) items use purple, Souvenir items yellow, and StatTrak™ items orange. Genuine items use a dark green marker, including P250 | X-Ray. These markers help identify special item qualities in the inventory or market preview; they do not replace the finish name or rarity grade.

StatTrak™ tracks eligible statistics, commonly the number of kills made with that weapon. The recorded count does not transfer to a new owner when an item is traded; a StatTrak™ Swap Tool can move a count between eligible weapons of the same class. Souvenir marks a tournament-linked item whose finish may carry event-specific stickers and attribution. See StatTrak™ and Souvenir for the full item rules.

Wear rating and float

Wear is stored as a float from 0 to 1 and is assigned when the item is created. The five common display conditions and their float intervals are listed above. Lower floats generally correspond to a newer condition, while higher floats correspond to greater visible wear. A weapon skin does not become more worn through play: its float does not degrade over time and cannot be changed.

The condition name alone does not guarantee that two different finishes will look equally worn. Each finish reacts to its float and design in its own way, and some finishes have restricted float ranges. Small scratches, faded paint, exposed metal or other wear effects depend on the specific surface pattern. For a specific item comparison, inspect its actual float and preview rather than infer its appearance only from the Factory New or Battle-Scarred label. See Wear for float interpretation.

Pattern index and seed

Pattern-based finishes use a visible Pattern Index seed in the range 1–1000. The seed selects a texture offset or displacement, so copies of the same weapon and finish can place artwork or colors differently. The seed is independent of wear: wear describes the condition value, while the seed identifies a pattern variation. See Pattern Index for more detail.

Some seeds become especially recognizable to collectors. On AK-47 | Case Hardened, patterns with a large amount of blue are commonly called “blue gems” and can be more sought after. This is collector preference tied to pattern placement, not a stronger version of the AK-47. For a fair comparison, hold the weapon model and finish constant, then compare the seed, float and actual preview.

Finish styles

Finish style describes how the design appears to be applied to the weapon surface. It is separate from the finish grade, collection, float and pattern seed. The CS2 finish catalogue includes the nine styles in the table above: painted colors, stencils, hydrographic film, anodized color treatments, patina, custom paint and combinations of those methods.

A style can span many designs and rarity grades. For example, a patina can resemble a chemical surface treatment, while a Hydrographic pattern uses an image transferred across primed parts. These categories explain the finish’s visual construction, not a separate gameplay attribute or a guarantee that all weapons in one style share the same color or wear behavior.

Inventory use and related systems

Weapon finishes are inventory items that players can equip on supported weapons before a match. A finish does not add a weapon to the player’s Loadout, change the Buy Menu or make an otherwise unavailable weapon purchasable. The player still selects and buys the underlying weapon under the ordinary team and economy rules.

CS2 items may be acquired through systems such as care-package rewards, containers, trade-up contracts, the Steam Community Market or player-to-player trading; eligibility and availability vary by item. A container is opened for a chance at its listed pool, while a trade-up contract consumes eligible inputs and uses their collections and grades to determine a higher-grade output. These methods act on inventory items; none changes what a finish does during combat.

CS2 applicability

This page describes the CS2 finish system and separates finish grade, inventory quality, wear, pattern and style. Item-specific float bounds, pattern examples and event stickers belong to their linked entries. Older release histories and retired acquisition events do not determine current availability; check the individual CS2 item and current inventory system for that.

September 27, 2023 Counter-Strike 2 launch update

The CS2 launch update fixed incorrect weapon viewmodel deploy speeds and pops in some inspect animations. It also allowed weapon inspection to interrupt a deploy animation, changing how these two presentation actions can overlap. Several Custom Paint Job finishes had wear that appeared too strong, and the patch adjusted wear values for affected finishes without naming every item or publishing before-and-after values.

The same release removed dynamic props from Solid Color inspect backgrounds. This affects the cosmetic inspection scene, not the weapon’s in-match performance. Weapon finish appearance, wear and animation are cosmetic systems; they do not modify damage or recoil. See Wear and Inventory.

Inspect and weapon-switch animation fixes

The April 14, 2026 animgraph_2_beta update fixed an animation pop when switching weapons while running, another when switching after throwing a grenade, and an issue that occurred when holding inspect while changing weapons. The April 17 update separately fixed fast weapon switching while inspect was held and made minor viewmodel-animation adjustments. These are dated presentation and transition fixes; the notes do not change weapon selection rules, inspect duration or finish appearance. The changes reached the live build on April 20, 2026. See Animgraph 2 (Beta).

Finish fixes and the Desert Eagle muzzle effect

The August 31, 2023 patch listed unspecified fixes for weapon finishes, without identifying which finishes or what their corrected appearance was. It also made the smoke effect from the Desert Eagle’s third-person muzzle flash dissipate faster. That visual change concerns the effect seen around the character model; the note does not change the Desert Eagle’s damage, firing rate or first-person muzzle effect.

Because the finish fixes are not itemized, they should not be treated as a complete list of affected skins. See Desert Eagle for the weapon and Animgraph 2 (Beta) for later animation history.

Finish-preview model correction (June 7, 2023)

A Limited Test update fixed legacy models appearing in previews of new weapon paint finishes. The correction was recorded on June 7, 2023 and applies to the finish-preview presentation; the notes do not name the affected finishes or imply that existing inventory items were replaced.

Weapon-finish updates (March 24, 2023)

The March 24, 2023 Counter-Strike 2 Limited Test update changed various weapon finishes in response to community feedback. It does not identify the finishes, collections or individual adjustments, so no specific skin is described as changed.

Sticker material adjustments (March 31, 2023)

The Counter-Strike 2 Limited Test continued PBR compatibility work on item finishes on March 31, 2023. Some Sticker styles were brightened for better contrast, and tooling was added to support fine-tuning individual items in future adjustments. This is an item-rendering pipeline and presentation note; the source does not name individual finishes or state that their wear or pattern changed.

Finish, Glove and Sticker fixes (September 13, 2023)

The patch lists various fixes for weapon finishes, Gloves and Stickers, but names no affected items or whether the problems involved rendering, placement, inspection or another behavior. It records general maintenance, not particular wear, pattern or finish changes. See Gloves and Stickers for category detail.

M4A1-S | Solitude limited-time item (August 14, 2025)

The August 14, 2025 update introduced M4A1-S | Solitude as a limited-time item available in The Armory. This is a dated cosmetic release for the M4A1-S, not a new weapon or a change to weapon performance. The patch does not list a removal date, price or finish-pattern details, so availability duration and appearance are not inferred here.

Related entries & categories