Nova | Ocular (Field-Tested)

The Nova | Ocular in Field-Tested (FT): surreal artwork on a shotgun at an entry-level price. The band here is 0.15 to 0.38. Restricted rank; the shotgun comes from the Sealed Genesis Terminal. The artwork is built from simple geometric shapes with detailed eyes set into them.

What the Nova | Ocular looks like in Field-Tested

The base is dark blue-teal, with cream-beige fields and rust-orange outlines. The handguard, receiver, the whole stock and part of the barrel are painted; the muzzle end and the trigger are left as bare dark metal. The eyes themselves are light gray, with a dark pupil and a drawn eyelid.

The large oval eye is repeated several times: one on the side of the receiver, one on the handguard and two on the stock. Cream ridges run between them. The ovals form stylized faces, but no particular animal can be made out; there is no lettering or numbers on the body.

In Field-Tested the first to go are the thin orange outlines and the cream ridges: they lie along the protruding edges of the handguard and stock. The edges of the receiver lighten with them. The large eyes on the flat side of the stock stay readable longest.

Where the Nova | Ocular came from

The paint was drawn by a Steam Workshop artist who goes by Kattys. Kattys posted the submission on February 19, 2025, under the title "Nova | Ocular (blue)": the author offered the blue variant from the very start. The Nova | Ocular is part of The Genesis Collection, released on September 16, 2025.

Kattys described the idea like this: a modern design inspired by abstract surrealism and the work of twentieth-century artists. Simple geometric forms are joined in it with realistic details, expressive eyes and an ear, as if brought to life on the metal. Valve repeated this in the item description almost word for word.

Valve's update post was brief: the collection holds seventeen skins by community authors, and the Genesis terminal is handed out as a weekly drop. Valve's catalog number for the skin is 1350.

What to check before buying

For the Nova | Ocular, it makes sense to check the following:

• the float: it shows how worn the orange outlines and cream ridges are;


• the edges of the handguard and stock: the thin lines break there first;


• stickers and an applied name: on the Nova | Ocular they transfer with the listing.

The pattern on the Nova | Ocular is not randomized: all copies are identical.

Listings of the Nova | Ocular within 0.15 to 0.38 differ noticeably in looks.

What the Nova | Ocular costs in Field-Tested

Prices by wear run like this:

• Factory New costs roughly six times as much;


• Minimal Wear costs about twice as much;


• Well-Worn is a few percent cheaper;


• Battle-Scarred is cheaper by a factor of about one and a half.

The sixfold price of the top wear is explained by the thin outlines: the whole geometry reads through them. Going down, the savings are barely noticeable.

Twelve Restricted Nova skins have a price in this wear, and the Nova | Ocular is third by price among them. Only Wild Six and Rising Sun are cheaper. A neighbor sits right alongside, Koi and one more cost more than four times as much, and the most expensive in the rank is Baroque Orange.

Getting the Nova | Ocular

The first route is the Genesis terminal; the paint is not in any other set. The route without buying is a contract: ten skins one rank down from the same collection, with the Nova | Ocular as the result.

StatTrak and Souvenir

Stickers and craft on the Nova | Ocular

The Nova | Ocular has a StatTrak version. No Souvenir packages were released for this paint: those were made only for tournament map collections. But you can build a Souvenir copy yourself: the Souvenir-O-Matic puts gold tournament stickers and a player's autograph on an ordinary skin from the inventory. So the odd Souvenir copy turns up now and then even where no packages ever existed.

The dark blue-teal base takes stickers well: it is calm in color and does not argue with the artwork. White and yellow stickers read best, teal ones blend in. Small logos get lost next to the detailed eyes, so people pick large ones. The handguard and the lower part of the receiver are free.

Who this wear suits

Buying the Nova | Ocular here makes sense under these conditions:

• you want an inexpensive shotgun with unusual artwork for CS2;


• you lean toward surrealism rather than camouflage or abstraction;


• you need cheap inputs for a trade-up to the Classified rank in CS2.

The Nova is a niche weapon, and the shotgun rarely ends up in your hands. But the way into the Restricted rank here is almost free.