You Can Now Craft Knives and Gloves in CS2 Using Five “Red” Skins — Valve Releases Major Update

CS2 October 2025 Update – Knife and Glove Crafting

On the night of October 23, 2025, Valve rolled out one of the biggest updates for Counter-Strike 2 since its launch. The main highlight of the patch is the expansion of the Trade-Up Contract system — players can now craft knives and gloves using five “Covert” (red) skins.

New Crafting System

There are now two main types of Trade-Up contracts:

5 StatTrak™ Covert items can be traded for 1 StatTrak™ knife from a collection that includes one of the provided items.
5 regular Covert items can be traded for 1 regular knife or a pair of gloves from a matching collection.

The change had an immediate impact on the in-game market: prices of rare skins began to fluctuate dramatically.
Knives and gloves have dropped in price, while “red” Covert skins have skyrocketed in value.

Retakes Mode Officially Added

In addition to the crafting update, Valve officially introduced the Retakes mode — previously available only on community servers. It’s now part of official matchmaking and supports maps from Defusal Group Alpha and Defusal Group Delta.

Each Retakes round starts with a 4v3 post-plant scenario. Players choose one of four available loadout setups and must either defuse or defend the bomb, requiring good coordination and resource management.

Map Changes and Optimization

Golden, Palacio, and Rooftop have been updated to their latest Steam Workshop versions.
Inferno received visual improvements around Quad and Under Balcony, along with performance optimizations.
Fixed issues with Molotov and smoke grenade interactions, as well as inventory icons occasionally appearing blurred or missing.

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