Armory Passes are an all-new way to get skins, stickers, and charms in CS2, introduced with the Armory update in October 2024. How do they work, what can they get you, and how can you make the most of your CS2 Armory Pass? Read on to find out! 

Contents

• What Are Armory Passes in CS2?
• Gaining Armory Credits
  • The Fastest Way to Get Armory Credits in CS2
• Spending Armory Credits
• Are Armory Passes Worth It?

What Are Armory Passes in CS2? 

Armory Passes let you gain Armory Credits, which you can redeem for selected cosmetic items in the new in-game store, The Armory. These items are the new collections of skins, stickers, and charms, which were first introduced in October 2024 with the Armory update. 

To get an Armory Pass, you’ll need to buy it from the in-game store. Each pass costs $16, and you need to have CS2 Prime Status (which costs $15) in order to be able to buy Passes. 

Once you have purchased a Pass, it immediately becomes active and has one Credit already unlocked. To get more credits, you need to gain XP by playing the game. Every Pass you buy has a cap of 40 Credits—once you’ve maxed out a Pass, you’ll need to buy a new one to keep gaining Credits. 

You don’t have to grind Passes one by one, though—you can have up to five Passes active at the same time, gaining Credits simultaneously on all of them. Five Passes will cost you $80. 

So, to sum up: 

At the time of writing (right after the update), there’s only one kind of Armory Pass. 

It’s also worth noting that Passes cannot be sold or transferred. The same goes for Credits: you have to gain your own XP to unlock them. There’s also no way to buy items directly from the Armory with cash—Credits are the only accepted currency. 

Gaining Armory Credits

To get Armory Credits on your Pass (or Passes), all you have to do is gain XP by playing the game on official servers, in any mode. 

You’ll need roughly 300 XP per Credit, which is more or less equal to winning 10 rounds in Competitive mode. 

XP gain on your Passes is not affected by any XP reductions or boosts active for your account. So, if you exceed your playtime threshold and get the reduced XP gain debuff, the XP counter on your active passes will proceed as normal, as if your XP gain was not reduced. The same goes for any XP boosts. 

You can keep purchasing Passes after maxing them out and spending your Credits. 

The Fastest Way to Get Armory Credits in CS2

So, what’s the most efficient way to get Credits quickly and fill up your CS2 Passes? 

First of all, if you’re determined to get as many Credits as possible, have all five Passes active at once. This does mean a one-time investment of $80 ($16 per Pass), but it will give you five times more Credits for your XP. So, instead of getting you 1 Credit, each 300 XP you earn will give you 5 Credits, one on each Pass. 

As for the progress itself, some game modes will get you more experience per hour than others.

If you play alone, choose Deathmatch to gain the most XP in the shortest time. The instant respawn on Deathmatch means that you can get back into the action straight away, gaining XP throughout the entire time you spend playing. If you’re a decent shot, you can get around 100 XP for 10 minutes of gameplay, meaning that it would take around an hour of continuous gameplay to get 2 credits. 

Competitive is not the best choice for solo XP grinding, since you have to factor in the time spent matchmaking. Plus, you may not actually win, so XP gain is much less predictable and dependable. However, it’s a good idea to play Competitive if you’re with a group of friends and know that you can get consistent wins. 

Arms Race and Wingman in CS2 provide the least XP per hour on average, so avoid these modes if you’re playing purely to grind for Credits. 

Spending Armory Credits

Alright, onto the fun part: spending Credits! 

At launch, the Armory features over 100 cosmetic items, including: 

• 3 Weapon Collections: Overpass, Graphic, Sport and Field, with 16 skins each
• 1 Weapon Case: The Gallery, with 17 skins
• 2 Sticker Collections: Elemental Craft with 26 stickers and Character Craft with 25
• 2 Charms Collections: The Missing Link with 17 charms and Small Arms with 16
• 1 Limited-Edition Weapon Skin: on release, that’s the Desert Eagle | Heat Treated

Visit our post on the Armory CS2 Update to see all of them—it features galleries of everything that’s available via the Armory. We also have a guide on all skins from the Gallery Case, check it out!

Let’s talk prices. Here’s how many Credits you’ll need to spend on each of these: 

• Sticker = 1 Credit
• Gallery Case = 2 Credits*
• Charm = 3 Credits
• Collection skin = 4 Credits
• Limited-edition item = 25 Credits

* You also need to buy a key to open the case ($2.50)

Note that except for the Limited-edition skin, your loot will be random. You can’t directly purchase a specific skin from the Graphic Collection, for example—you’ll spend 4 Credits to get a random skin from a chosen Collection. Skins within Collections vary in rarity, so you could get a more valuable Covert skin, or, say, a cheaper Mil-Spec skin. In some ways, this is similar to opening cases—except that you also need to grind XP to get Credits. 

Are Armory Passes Worth It?

So, what do players think of the Armory and the Pass system? Some are excited at the prospect of unlocking new skins while playing the game. Others… are not so thrilled, to put it mildly—plenty of Reddit users are downright outraged at what they consider to be a money grab on Valve’s part.

Admittedly, the “I have to pay AND grind XP for a random skin I may not want” argument does have some weight to it. 5 Passes will cost $80, keys for the Gallery Case cost extra, you need dozens of hours to grind out the XP, and after all that, you could get a bunch of Mil-Spec skins you don’t even like. There’s a case to be made for spending this money on one skin you like on the Steam Market, or opening cases on Key-Drop, where you can see the odds for each item. 

Ultimately, it comes down to how you approach Armory Passes. You don’t have to go all-in—as a casual player, you could just get one Pass for $16 every now and again and enjoy getting random drops from the Armory as you play the game. Are they an effective way to get skins? Probably not, since you need to invest both time and money to get a complete unknown. Still, the potential ROI remains to be seen, depending on the value the Armory items will reach—they’ve yet to hit online markets at this point, so there’s no telling how much they’ll be worth. 

The good thing is that you won’t really miss out on anything important if you choose not to get Passes. Credits don’t unlock any gameplay content, just cosmetics—and soon enough, you’ll be able to buy them through the Steam Market or other listings. 

What’s your take on the Armory and the Pass system? Are you already all set with 5 Passes and looking forward to spending your Credits in the Armory, or is this whole thing not to your liking? Let us know on our socials, and see you in the next post!