Valve announces more skins with the "Call II Arms-ory"... and the community replies: "what about the anti-cheat?"
Valve isn't easing off the cosmetic accelerator. The official CS2 account announced overnight the "Call II Arms-ory", the second edition of its community collection program: the Workshop tools have been updated to accept submissions for a new weapon collection, dubbed Fairy Tales, and two new sticker collections, Cryptids and Pop Art (official Steam announcement).
The mechanics repeat the formula of 2025's first "Call to Arm-ory": Workshop artists upload their designs and tag them for the corresponding collection using the official tool's "Enlist" option, agreeing to Counter-Strike 2's supplemental terms, and Valve selects from there the skins that will eventually reach the game through the Armory Pass.
Today we're updating our Workshop Tools to support our second Call to Arms-ory. We're looking for new items for one new weapon collection:
— CS2 (@CounterStrike) July 16, 2026
- Fairy Tales
And two new sticker collections:
- Cryptids
- Pop Art
More information here: https://t.co/qNahxwMpkQ
The timing detail
What stands out isn't the program itself, but the moment. It's been barely a week since the winning collections from the first edition — Arabesque and Spy Tech — arrived in-game with the Season 5 patch, alongside the Fruits & Vegetables and Auto Racing stickers. Valve is already recruiting the next batch before the current one has spent ten days in the Armory: a sign the community program is here to stay as a steady content machine.
For Workshop creators, this is unambiguously good news: more collections mean more chances to see their work (and their commissions) in the game. And the Fairy Tales theme promises real creative play.
The community's response: cosmetics, sure, but...
The general reception is another matter. The announcement has racked up hundreds of thousands of views, and its replies have turned into a parade of reproaches with a common refrain: the cadence of cosmetic novelties contrasts with Valve's silence on the fronts the community has been flagging for years, with the anti-cheat at the top of the list. Among the most-liked replies is content creator sendoh's: "A new anti-cheat would be a total Fairy Tale."
The frustration doesn't come from nowhere. Complaints about cheaters in Premier's upper ranks are a forum staple — with reports of infested lobbies even at the highest CS Rating levels — and the general perception is that VACnet, the game's detection system, lags behind what third-party platforms offer with more intrusive anti-cheats. Add to that the usual list of pending grievances: Premier's handling of ties (whose potential tiebreaker system Valve went as far as describing in a tweet it later deleted), subtick, performance... The community isn't protesting getting skins; it's protesting getting only skins.
The usual caveat applies: cosmetics and anti-cheat aren't necessarily built by the same people, and the skin ecosystem is precisely what funds a free-to-play game. But communication management is on Valve, and as long as collection announcements arrive like clockwork while anti-cheat news is conspicuously absent, every new "Call to Arms" will reap the same ratio of angry replies. Last night's was no exception — it was confirmation of a pattern.
Source: Valve's official announcement (Steam/X), community reactions on X.