What’s the best Counter-Strike map of all time? Dust and its various generational updates will always spring to mind first. But personally, I like Office, especially the CS: Source version – back in 2004, Valve’s physics engine was still a huge novelty, and knocking over the filing cabinets to block the projector room felt like a tactical masterstroke. We’ve seen Overpass, Inferno, Mirage, and plenty of others come to Counter-Strike 2 so far, but one beloved map from CSGO is still missing. That, however, may be about to change.
New hero-based FPS game Deadlock might have some of Valve’s attention, but the Half-Life creator is still focused on Counter-Strike 2. Cheaters are being punished. A bizarre post-game bug was recently squashed. And now the Counter-Strike team is tipping its hand once more with a potentially very telling new teaser image. The banner on the official Counter-Strike Twitter profile was just changed to a picture of some in-game asphalt:
Now, that could hint at a variety of new maps – it looks a bit Cache. But in October, dataminers investigating what was then a new CS2 update discovered references to “train graffiti” and train-related sound effects. Stalwart Counter-Strike sleuth ‘AquaIsMissing’ posted the findings at the time.
Train is one of the remaining CSGO maps that hasn’t made it over to Counter-Strike 2 yet. If Valve was adding files for Train back in October, and now it’s sharing this new image which, as well as Cache, does look like it could come from Train, I’d say it’s safe to put two and two together here.
A narrow map with two bomb sites, Train naturally benefits the Counter Terrorist team. The CT spawn is closer to the bomb sites than the Terrorist spawn, and it’s easy to pile every player onto bomb site A and then rotate them to B if necessary, since both sites are so close to one another. Whether Valve will adjust the map at all to try and redress the balance (like it did with Dust 2) remains to be seen.
If you want a change from CS2, maybe try some of the other best free Steam games. Alternatively, find out precisely how Counter-Strike 2 skins work and which ones are worth the most.
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