Ballistic Shield returns to CS:GO's Danger Zone with latest patch

The Ballistic Shield has made its return to Counter-Strike. In the Danger Zone.

Introduced in the original Counter-Strike but removed in Counter-Strike: Source, the shield is now available as an upgrade item in Global Offensive’s battle royale mode. The item retains some of its functions from the previous games, but is still quite different from the original.

Unlike in 1.6, the Ballistic Shield is not used as a primary weapon and does not carry the same movement and offensive penalties as in previous games. The Ballistic Shield blocks most shots taken from the front while it's, equipped, but players can still be hit in the legs, from behind, and through the eye slot. It also has a bash attack that gives players a bit of offensive potency while the item is equipped.

The shield shares the same equipment slot as the Medi-Shot, and can be procured on-site, purchased via drone, or selected as a deployment perk. In addition to the Ballistic Shield, molotov cocktails and C4 charges have also been added to Danger Zone as deployment perk options.

A number of small bug fixes were made to the Sirocco map. Glitchy textures were remedied and unintentional bottomless pits for both explosives and players were plugged. Players are no longer allowed to drop on top of the towers in the Kashbah region of the map.

While the addition of the Ballistic Shield is a welcome one, many of the cool features teased in the last Danger Zone update are still in limbo. Pilotable drones, new money making options, and others are still unaccounted for.

The primary CS:GO game modes were virtually untouched in this patch with just a few minor tweaks being made. The most notable changes came to the layout of Train, which had a train car ladder adjusted on the B bomb site while some visual gaps between train cars were filled.

The full patch notes can be found on the official CS:GO blog.