Cosmetics Talk: How Will the Highlight Souvenir Charm Ultimately Be Presented?
In previous update, Valve finally officially announced the previously leaked “Major Souvenir Charm”! It also explained how the charm will be displayed, but before the BLAST.tv Austin Major 2025 playoffs kick off, players still won't be able to redeem a Souvenir Package with the BLAST.tv Austin Major 2025 “Missing Link Charms” and see it for themselves. For now, they can only guess what the final version will look like from all kinds of leaks and rumors~
Did the idea for the “Major Souvenir Charm” originally come from Valve's favorite child, Dota 2?
Even though making tournament-themed commemorative cosmetics for events like Majors and TI has always been a Valve tradition, the idea of the "Highlight Souvenir Charm" this time may have first traced back to the "Heroic Heirloom" items that dropped during early TI broadcasts
Introduction to the “Heroic Heirloom” cosmetic items in DotA2
Similar to the “highlight souvenir” concept now introduced in CS2, in Dota 2’s “Heroic Heirloom” cosmetics, items can carry the event description, the two teams in the matchup, and a description of the highlight moment to commemorate a player’s big play!
Prices for different prefixes on the same item
Also, as cosmetics tied to “tournament memorabilia,” Heroic Heirloom-related cosmetics will likely carry more value than other prefixes thanks to their scarcer supply, such as 2014 and 2015 Major Souvenirs, and their unique tournament significance, such as Souvenirs with kennyS or pasha player stickers.
How will the Major Souvenir Charm in CS2 be presented?
Even though Valve has only released a single announcement and one image for this "Highlight Souvenir Charm" so far, content creator МОЛЕКУРЯТНИК has already made a preview video based on the code currently found in the update files!
In the inventory screen, when the player hovers the cursor over a Souvenir with a “Highlight Souvenir Charm,” the inspect window will automatically play the highlight moment recorded by that charm; unlike other cosmetics, that Souvenir will also have an extra “Watch Highlights” option, which opens an in-game window to watch that highlight.
At the same time, on this Souvenir item's inspect screen, the bottom menu will include an extra "Watch Highlights" option alongside the wear information, so you can also watch the highlight tied to the inspected charm from the inspect screen.
Currently Unknown Related Features
Illustration from the update announcement
Although Valve’s current update wording says “a Highlight Souvenir Package will contain one Souvenir with a charm attached”, it does not explain whether that charm can be removed with a “Charm Detachment Pack”. In the image shown in the update announcement, the inventory UI has been blurred, but you can still faintly make out the look of the “Highlight Souvenir Charm” behind it. Does that mean this charm can also be detached and put on another gun?If it can be removed, can the Souvenir charm itself be traded?Or would making it non-detachable better highlight the unique value of a Souvenir?
How Are "Highlights" Determined?
Descriptions of Souvenirs from 18 Majors
Unlike the old CS:GO “souvenir drops” era, where a specific Souvenir Package was generated based on that round’s MVP, the question now is: when players can freely choose a specific playoff match to redeem a Souvenir Package, how will Valve decide when that map’s “highlight moment” happened? Do you think Valve will be the usual “lazy devs” and pick one unified “highlight moment” for the Souvenir Package from the same map, or will it be randomly generated when players open the Souvenir Package? If it is random, will Valve lower the “drop rate” for charms tied to iconic plays from popular players like donk, ZywOo, and NiKo to make them feel rarer? Maybe Souvenir items tied to specific star-player highlights will fetch better prices later?
Is nobody redeeming non-playoff Souvenir Packages anymore?
In Valve's announcement, another clarified detail is that "they can only come from playoff-stage matches", while the Stage 1–Stage 3 group-stage Souvenir Packages will not include a "Highlight Souvenir Charm". At the same cost of ¥21 per Souvenir Token, will players all choose to redeem playoff Souvenir Packages with the extra charm? Or, because the "charm cannot be detached," will some players still redeem group-stage Souvenir Packages?
How do you think the final Major Highlight Souvenir Charm will be presented? Drop your thoughts in the comments~