A few days ago Valve introduced new ranks into the Danger Zone gamemode of CS:GO. Danger Zone is CS:GO’s version of a battle royale which was implemented in early 2019.
In the CS:GO community, it’s common knowledge that the Danger Zone player base is a lot smaller compared to the normal competitive matchmaking gamemode that has been around for way longer. I think there were a lot of people that played a few games of Danger Zone when it was first released, but after a few weeks, people just stopped playing it. My guess is that Valve added the new ranks in the hope that it would make more people play the gamemode and improve its player base.
Compared to the standard matchmaking ranks, the Danger Zone ranks are completely new, and instead of 18 ranks, there are only 15. In my opinion, I think that the Danger Zone ranks look a lot better than the original matchmaking ones, but maybe it’s because they’re something new that I haven’t seen before. However, the highest Danger Zone rank (The Howling Alpha) looks a lot cooler than The Global Elite which is the highest rank in matchmaking.
As of now, players of all ranks in Danger Zone play together in one system. This is way different from matchmaking where you typically play against players in a similar skill group to you. I’m pretty sure the reason why they’re doing this, for now, is because they still don’t have enough players playing the game for a matchmaking system to work. So as of now, the Danger Zone ranks are just a status symbol as to how good you are in the gamemode, but doesn’t actually affect the people you play against.
I never really did play Danger Zone, and even after the new ranks have been added I still don’t think that I’ll play it. However, I still think it’s a good idea to get more people to play the gamemode in order to keep it alive, and if it works, they’ll be able to create a ranked ladder for people to try and climb.