Female CS2 pros demand Valve end “unwelcoming” extra charge for female agent skins
An all-female CS2 team has called out Valve to stop the “unwelcoming” extra charge to get a female agent skin in Counter-Strike 2.
Counter-Strike 2, shortened as CS2, is a multiplayer first-person shooter (FPS) developed and published by Valve. The game is an updated version of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) and was released in September 2023.
Since the first installment of Counter-Strike, which was released in 2000, there have always been default agents with a male physique and headgear. There weren’t any default female characters for players until they released skins that are locked behind a paywall.
This was why Astralis Women, the all-female CS2 team of the professional Danish esports organization Astralis, took to X with an “open letter” to the game developers to follow up on their mail.
In the letter, they stated that the female agent skins cost extra while all the default characters were male.
They claim that this feels “unfair and unwelcoming” and “supports the sexism” that female players encounter.
They advocated that there should be no difference between the agents and that there should be an equal number of free female and male agents in CS2.
They also stated that more women would begin to play the game if they had the option of playing as female agents. At the least, the female players already playing the game would feel welcomed. They called for diversity and inclusivity in the game.
In the past years, Reddit users had posted about finally having female agents in CS:GO, so this had been an ongoing discussion since CS2’s predecessor.
Astralis Women’s open letter has mostly received negative feedback from the X community. One CS2 content creator replied to the open letter stating that they “couldn’t care less about female default skins” and that Valve should instead focus on improving the game and making a proper anticheat.
“As much as I appreciate the effort of sending a message to Valve, I still think female default agents won’t have a huge impact on attracting more girls,” they later stated alongside a clip that shows the “real reason why most girls don’t want to play.”
There hasn’t been any response from Valve since the tweet was posted.