An important change has come to Counter-Strike: Global Offensive that affects what kind of content new players who dip into it for free can access. As of some new adjustments to the FPS game's free version - as opposed to CS:GO played with its purchasable Prime Status - new players will now have to fork out for a bunch of features they previously had access to, including ranked play.

While noting "it's as important as ever that anyone in the world can pick up and play the game for free", in a dev post announcing the changes, Valve says that, unfortunately over time access to features like drops, ranks, skill groups, and a free path to Prime matchmaking have "become an incentive for bad actors to hurt the experience of both new and existing players". So, the studio's made some changes to the goods on offer for those newbies not signed up to Prime.

Going forward, new players who haven't bought the status upgrade won't get XP, ranks, drops, or skill groups, as these will be reserved specifically for Prime players. The good news, though, is that newcomers can still hop into all of the game's modes, community servers, and community maps.