AUG

Lore & Background

Valve is an American video game developer and publisher founded in 1996 by Gabe Newell and Mike Harrington. The company is based in Bellevue, Washington. Valve's first game was Half-Life, a first-person shooter released in 1998. The company hired the creators of popular mods such as Counter-Strike. Valve continued developing first-person shooters and released Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, which has a large esports community fostered by Valve.

In Their Own Story

The dust on the catwalk above the site had settled into a fine grey film. Kovač pressed his cheek into the AUG's stock, the 4× lens swallowing the long corridor of B-site until the world was nothing but a narrow rectangle of concrete and shadow. His finger rested on the trigger guard, not the trigger. That was the rule. You never pre-tense the semi. You wait.

A silhouette broke the far doorway — a Terrorist pushing the angle, rifle up, scanning. Kovaç inhaled, held, let the crosshair settle on the space where the helmet met the neck. The round left the barrel with a sharp, dry crack that the 4× optic turned into a tiny, almost polite recoil. The silhouette stopped. The silhouette did not resume.

"One," he murmured into his comms, and the word carried the quiet satisfaction of a man who had spent forty-seven seconds doing absolutely nothing but breathing and waiting. The AUG sat warm in his hands, thirty rounds still in the box, and the next angle was already forming in his mind.

Reader's Guide

The AUG is an assault rifle with a scope. It is fully automatic. Its price and damage vary by game version and distance.

Did You Know?

• Valve hired the creators of the Counter-Strike mod.
• Counter-Strike: Global Offensive has a large esports community fostered by Valve.
• Valve is considered one of the most important and influential companies in the games industry.