On paper, the new Counter-Strike 2 update sounds perfectly innocent, if not a little comic: “Adjusted Banana to more closely match the size of the CSGO version.” But whether you’re a veteran of Valve’s multiplayer FPS or a relative newcomer, this seemingly marginal change is likely to have an impact on your entire game. From Half-Life to Left 4 Dead, Deadlock to Portal, Valve has proven itself one of the most capable level designers in gaming – I’m sure there’s logic here, and this is hardly the first time that Banana, that legendary alleyway towards bomb site B on Inferno, has been overhauled. Nevertheless, thanks to the new CS2 patch, years of tried-and-true tactics will likely have to be revised.
A quick recap. Banana is the nickname for the curved road on the western side of Inferno that forms a connective vein between the Terrorist and Counter-Terrorist spawn points. More significantly, it provides the fastest route for the Terrorists to reach bomb site B. If the Terrorists can capture Banana, it forces the CTs to split their defenses between A and B. But if the CTs can push the Terrorists back, the Terrorists will have to commit their offensive to site A. Since 2001, Banana has been a nexus point for the evolution of Counter-Strike 2 tactics.
The CTs used to fill Banana with smoke grenades, so Terrorists found ways to boost over them. The flower pot used for boosting was removed, and so Terrorists started to push up and stand on the logs instead. Then the CTs used Molotovs to force anyone standing on the logs to break cover. And then the Terrorists started using smoke grenades to smother the Molotovs’ flames. If you want a crash lesson in the minutiae of Valve’s FPS game, and the science behind CS2, it’s all there in the history of Inferno and Banana.
And now there’s a new chapter. Courtesy of the latest Counter-Strike 2 update, Banana has been slightly widened – dimensions-wise, the alleyway is closer in size now to the previous, CSGO version. That means two things. Firstly, the little in-game signposts that Terrorists use to perfectly line up their own smoke grenades (placing the crosshair at the correct spot above the graffiti-sprayed capital ‘B’ before tossing the famed ‘coffin smoke,’ for example) may no longer be reliable. Secondly, if Banana is wider, the Molotovs thrown by Counter-Terrorists may not spread across its entire breadth, potentially leaving the Terrorists with a narrow lane of ingress.
We’ll have to see how it all shakes out, but the new changes to Inferno and Banana will almost certainly have a big impact both on casual and professional Counter-Strike 2 play. The update also fixes some bugs on Train, adds some new weapon collections via the weekly care package, and introduces some new finishes to the armory.
You might want to sample some of the other best multiplayer games, or perhaps the very best war games on PC.
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