It’s understandable that it took a while before community-made dangerzone maps began
rolling out, what with how large and complex they are. But in this last month, the game
has received 2 more, both with similar, icy themes. And that makes comparisons between
the two inevitable, even if their designs are vastly different. Since they may (or may
not!) be featured in CS:GO at some point in the future, let’s take a look at both of
them now. The first is Arctic, designed by Michal3210.
He has already made 3 for the gamemode- the first of which was Junglety, which Valve officially
included in the game a while back. He then made Severo, which is a bit like Sirocco.
And the third is Arctic. So he’s already a seasoned mapper for Danger Zone.
But there’s a new contender: Frostbite, which came out just the other day. This one
has been developed by a number of names I’m familiar with from the workshop community,
their submissions having reached the finalist – or at least the runner up- stages of the
Exotic Places Mapcore Competition. Both of these dangerzone maps sport cold,
snowy themes. I’ll be showcasing them in this video.
I won’t be going into the gameplay that much since it’s extremely difficult to rigorously
playtest a dangerzone map, but hopefully you’ll get a feel for the theme of these maps. Plus
it’s a great excuse for some beautiful 4K flybys.
And if you ever get confused over which map’s which, arctic’s snow is grainy in appearance,
while frostbite’s snow seems thicker and whiter, and almost entirely covers most surfaces.
WORLD – Arctic Arctic is your standard island affair, though
there are still distant hills and mountains which connect to the island at a few key points.
The map’s most iconic feature has to be a train track running around the edges of
the playable space. At one point this goes over a bridge and through a tunnel before
ending up at the train station. I look at this map and think, yeah, this is a classic
style of dangerzone map. Had you not been told, you’d probably assume this was a Valve-made
map since it’s essentially a snowy version of Sirocco or Blacksite, done to the same
level of detail and polish, and with distinct regions and features everywhere.
WORLD – Frostbite Frostbite attempts something new by being
situated, not on an island, but in a snowy valley. Rather than to have distinct regions,
this feels maybe more like an actual place, with buildings dotted about, but there are
still a few key landmarks to help you get your bearings. While Arctic’s got a train
track, Frostbite has 2 ski lifts, together spanning the length of the map. This is only
decorative, but you can still explore the structures either end of them.
If you’ve wondered why existing danger zone maps have all been on islands, I might have
discovered the reason. Since this one’s entirely surrounded by hills and trees, I
wondered if this would result in problems with the drones which just love to get bugged
out on the scenery. And sure enough, I tried ordering a weapon and… never got it. Admittedly,
it was a very unlucky first attempt since most of the time they DO get there, but order
stuff from certain spots in the map and the drones will struggle to reach you. This is
a KNOWN issue with the map, so here’s hoping they can find a fix for it. That, and the
radar overview not working. Among other things. So I’m confident this will be fixed at some
point.
BUILDINGS – Arctic You can enter pretty much every building in
Arctic, even if bits of them may still be out of bounds. And the game does an excellent
job of indicating which bits are accessible. Inside, Arctic’s buildings feel abandoned
and empty. Most windows are missing, and most buildings are nothing more than a load of
boxes and a few items of furniture. Michal has closely followed the way that Valve built
their own levels in this regard. And you do get factories, shops and construction sites
which feel extremely similar to the ones seen in existing Dangerzone maps.
BUILDINGS – Frostbite The buildings’ interiors in Frostbite are
more diverse. The shops feel more like they’re still in business, and most standard houses
have unique feeling interiors. They’re still sparsely decorated, but some are appealingly
designed! And there were some that seemed a bit pointless because they only had one
apparent entrance. And there are many buildings that you can’t enter at all. And I didn’t
find any hard-and-fast rule to know which I could and couldn’t. Some doorways looked
like I couldn’t open them, but I could. While others I thought I could, but couldn’t.
Some windows are boarded up, but turn the corner and you find a way into the building
any way. Maybe this is the price you have to pay for interiors which feel less copy+pasted
than perhaps Arctic’s do… but it does mean that you’ll need to play more of Frostbite
before you begin to learn the ins and outs of this map’s ins and outs.
TUNNELS – Arctic Both maps have similar underground areas in
that you enter from the bottom into a cave, and then progress up into a building complex
until you finally arrive at the surface. This network in Arctic covers a lot of vertical
space, I felt I was deep underground but was never far from an opening to show me that
I was still above the surface. Arctic’s polished, ice cave I feel is -ironically-
the least polished-looking bit of the map. Tunnels are not easy to map for in the Source
engine and it’s easy to spot where surfaces have been subdivided, and where they haven’t
been subdivided enough.
TUNNELS – Frostbite Frostbite’s underground network is an absolute
MAZE. The lowest level is a series of dark, scary caves. It’s really dark down here,
and I wonder how good it will be for visibility. I commend the sound design though, since the
gun shot echoes sound awesome. These caves lead to a complex… complex. It goes on and
on, so once you’re in here, expect to be in here for a while. Appreciating the nice
echoes or whatever.
CONCLUSION I don’t want you coming away from this video
thinking that I think one of these maps is better than the other. I have observed, and
I have explored. And I think that Arctic is the prettier of the two. But I am not in a
position to judge their gameplay. And if I’m honest, I don’t know who is. When making
this video, I had some time to think about mapping. And I realised that designing for
Danger Zone is almost the exact opposite of making a defuse map.
With a traditional CS:GO level, it’s about fine-tuning a series of corridors that you’ll
run down a thousand times in an almost identical way. A defuse map works because, as a player,
you learn what to expect every time you play the level. You perfect your approach to an
area, you memorise new grenades that you can rely on to counter a specific enemy action.
Its key is in its predictability and familiarity, and if I’m brutally honest I’d say that’s
why old maps are so popular and why it’s so hard for a new map to break into the game.
Mapping for Dangerzone, on the other hand, is absolutely nothing like mapping for defuse.
The entire dangerzone gamemode is based around random mechanics. Your spawns are different,
the way the zones close in and WHERE they close in every time is different. The weapons
and equipment you get every time is different. One map will pan out in SO many different
ways, that there is no planning for that when mapping for it. I really think your best bet
is to build a map and to hope for the best, and you’ll only know how well it plays following
a huge amount of playtesting. Both of these maps have gone about this, perhaps
successfully, in different ways. Arctic plays it safe by repeating what has already worked
for the gamemode. It perfectly imitates the style of Valve’s own dangerzone levels.
And why shouldn’t it- it’s tried and tested, it works, and the gamemode’s appeal is in
the random mechanics beyond the mapper’s control. So imitating existing maps doesn’t
mean that it’ll be stale. I think keeping the gamemode fresh could be as simple as changing
the theme of the map once in a while, which is something an ice map will do.
Frostbite doesn’t copy Valve’s formula so rigidly. In my opinion, It feels more like
a PUBG map, where not all places are created equally. It sports large open areas with very
little cover. It has others where you have no choice but to follow a set path for a while.
And it contains some rooms and areas which are, effectively, dead ends! These all seem
like things that Valve’s and Michal’s maps go to great lengths to avoid doing. I
guess in a defuse map, you quickly learn to avoid places like these- but in dangerzone,
when the spawns and end points are random, you may be forced from time to time to traverse
these places, or may even be able to get the jump on other people who are forced there
themselves. It makes Frostbite feel more like a real place, rather than to be a series of
corridors ‘disguised’ as buildings. It also seems a bit like different elements
of the map are disconnected from each other, as though different mappers worked on different
areas and then merged their creation together, resulting in inconsistencies. You can see
this especially on the snowy rooftops. Some are very neatly done. Others are messy…
and other buildings don’t have any snow on them at all!
And I guess Arctic also does this in places, but I never found it was quite so obvious
or distracting, in part because this map doesn’t have such a thick layer of snow cover in the
first place. So it was just little things like the roofs,
and the fact there were drone problems, which made me feel like what we’re seeing here
is the end of phase one of the map’s development. And now they’ve managed to connect it all
up into one map file, they’ve released it to the public as they turn their focus to
playtesting and polishing it up. As far as I’m concerned, they’ve already
gotten the hardest part out of the way, and that’s developing a good-looking map on
this scale and getting it to work in the Source engine. From here on, it’s onwards and upwards.
And they’ve certainly got the manpower to achieve it.
I think the conclusion here is very simple- which map you’ll prefer depends on what
you want from a Dangerzone map. If you like the gamemode already then you’ll also like
Arctic. It essentially provides the same gameplay as existing maps, but with a different theme.
But if you’re looking for something different, and are willing to give dangerzone a chance,
then Frostbite might be more your kind of thing. I think, if one of these is chosen
to be officially featured in the game, it’ll show what Valve is looking for. Whether they’re
looking to innovate on the gamemode, or if they feel it works as it is and are simply
looking for new layouts to freshen it up. Either way, it’s new content for the game,
and either of these maps is potentially good enough to be featured. Provided Frostbite’s
drone pathfinding is fixed.