Gaming News

Default Female Skins Might Be Coming to Counter-Strike, Thanks to Open Letter From Pros

Astralis, a Counter-Strike women’s team has put out an open letter to Valve.

In some of my past stories, I’ve talked about different stuff related to Counter-Strike. You can find those linked at the end of this post. But right now, I wanna chat about Astralis and their open letter to Valve, asking them to add default female skins to Counter-Strike.

The Astralis Counter-Strike women’s team recently penned an open letter to Valve, the developer of the game, requesting the inclusion of female skins as default options in future releases.

The letter, shared by team member Josefine Jensen and signed by the entire roster including Aurora Lyngdal, Marie Toft, Anja Soelberg, and Isabella Ferslev, expresses their love for Counter-Strike and their desire to feel more included in the game.

“We love being part of the global Counter-Strike community, but it feels like we’re just guests at the party,” the letter reads.

The players are frustrated that while there are female agent skins available, they are all behind paywalls. In CS2, female agent skins like Lieutenant Farlow, Getaway Sally, and others were part of previous operations and had to be earned or purchased.

Currently, these skins are being sold on the community market, with prices ranging from £7.50/$9 to £40/$51.

Jensen finds these skins cool but hopes for more casual options similar to the default male agents if Valve decides to add default female agents. The players argue that since there are already female agents in the game, it seems unfair that there are no default female agents available for all players to use.

The players also mention encountering sexism in the CS2 scene, and unfortunately, the response to their letter has highlighted this issue. Despite gaining considerable support, many replies have been dismissive or insulting, proving the players’ point about the persistence of sexism in the community.

Valve, being an experienced development studio capable of designing great female characters, can implement default female agent skins, as it has already designed female agent skins for CS:GO and CS2.

The positive response to the letter shows that this change would be welcomed by many players and could help attract more women to the game.

Final Words

Although the players have not yet received a response from Valve, they remain hopeful. Despite the negative comments, Jensen focuses on the positive feedback and is glad they took the initiative to speak up.

The request for default female agent skins in Counter-Strike does not seem unreasonable, and the players believe that there should be as many free female agents as male agents.

I am grateful that 3 of my recent stories close to my heart were also boosted. I share the links here as samples for aspiring writers and interested readers.

My Sample Boosted Stories.

Here are my previous collections.

I Self-Curated My August 2023 Stories Based on Topics

Here’s What I Wrote in July 2023.

Here’s What I Wrote in June 2023

Here’s What I Wrote in May 2023

Here’s What I Wrote in April 2023

Here’s What I Wrote in March 2023

I provided an update on my last month.

Here are a few of my previous stories relating to Counter-Strike I believe you will enjoy:

References

Women CS2 Pros Write Open Letter, Seek More Free Female Characters.

Open letter to valve. Please hear us out.

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About Me

I write articles in my field covering gaming, film-making, social media, and design. I am also a YouTuber. Thank you for subscribing to my account to get notifications when I post on Medium. I also created a new website to share my content for free and promote stories of writers contributing to my publications on Medium. I also have a Substack newsletter. Let’s connect on Twitter and LinkedIn.

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