How to earn operation stars in CS:GO

Earn them the hard way.
Counter Strike Globabl Offensive official artwork.
Screengrab via Valve

It’s that time of year again. A new operation in CS:GO has revitalized the player base with some new game modes, some important changes, and a whole lot of new skins, stickers, and agents.

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Of course, with a new operation comes a new set of weekly missions to accomplish. Typically, the stars you earn from this operation would unlock a path of rewards. But for Operation Riptide, the stars can be spent in the operation shop on agents, weapons from the new collections, cases, patches, and stickers. Those stars will upgrade your operation coin as well.

Image via Valve

Here’s what you have to do to earn operation stars.

Completing operation missions

This is the most straightforward way of earning operation stars during any operation. Every week, a series of missions will be added to the game across a variety of game modes: competitive, casual, deathmatch, Danger Zone, War Games, Wingman, Guardian, and more. These missions will require you to accomplish a variety of tasks: winning rounds, winning matches, getting kills, completing tasks in Danger Zone, and so on.

Some missions will require you to complete the entire mission to earn the stars, while others will reward some stars for partial completion. Keep in mind you can only earn 10 stars a week, so you don’t have to fully complete every single mission. You don’t have to complete the missions in the week they come out and you can always go back. Even if you hit your star cap for the week, completing that week’s missions will still earn progress toward upgrading your operation coins.

If you’re looking to complete the missions in Operation Riptide, check out our corresponding guides for each week of missions:

Buying operation stars

If you’re looking to “earn” operation stars without having to actually play the game, there’s an option to just buy them outright.

Go to the operation shop and click “Get More Stars” next to where your current balance is. Stars are $0.80 each but are discounted in bulk. You can get 10 stars for $4.99 or 100 stars for $44.99. Stars can’t be refunded after purchase, so be sure when you buy them.

If you buy a Riptide case, you still need to purchase the key for it.


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Author
Scott Robertson
VALORANT lead staff writer, also covering CS:GO, FPS games, other titles, and the wider esports industry. Watching and writing esports since 2014. Previously wrote for Dexerto, Upcomer, Splyce, and somehow MySpace. Jack of all games, master of none.