Valve has now revealed that they’re working on a Dust2 remake that will improve both its
graphics and gameplay.
But this is only half of the story.
The other is that it’s been moved to a category of its own, something that I’ll be talking
about separately before moving onto the remade version and what to expect from it.
I think that giving it its own category should have been done a long time ago and indeed
suggested it in an older video of mine.
But at first glance, this update finally happening is a bit of a U-turn by Valve, who have previously
tried to force players away from the map.
For example, at one point they changed map voting in casual play so that the same map
couldn’t be chosen twice in a row.
This only really changed things by forcing alternation between Dust2 and another map.
But rather than forcing variety, Valve seems to have accepted that some people just like
to play Counter-Strike for Dust2.
I’m particularly happy with this, especially for deathmatch mode which lends itself well
to Dust2’s layout when compared with other defuse map layouts.
As far as I’m concerned giving the map its own category is a win-win for all.
It gives Dust-2 players what they want all of the time, which leaves the rest of us free
to play other maps with others who want to, without having to compete with the dust2 community
that inevitably wins the map vote choice at the end of every match.
Separating the hostage and defuse gamemodes is also very sensible in my opinion, don’t
even think I need to give reasons, it just makes sense that different gamemodes should
be kept separate.
And the remaining maps can be put into ‘reserves’.
What used to be a section for ‘least competitively viable maps’ is now a place for the ones
that are genuinely the least popular.
Might not sound like there’s much of a difference between these two things but there is, especially
if you’re not interested in getting better at the game and actually just enjoy playing
it for fun.
But there could be more reason for these changes than meets the eye.
Because although giving Dust2 its own category will let it be played MORE by those who want
to, in a way I think it’s a crafty move by Valve to distance it from the rest of the
game.
The map has been the undisputed centrepiece of Counter Strike since its release.
And as great as it is to have such a legendary map, it does give Valve problems.
Even if it’s the best map ever, does that necessarily mean that it’s the most enjoyable
map to watch other people playing on?
Or is perhaps watching matches and strategies on it getting old?
I can’t answer this.
But I wouldn’t put it past Valve to use this shift as an opportunity to move Dust2
out of the main map pool for tournaments.
Personally, I wouldn’t mind they did.
Although I enjoy playing on it, I wouldn’t mind it being replaced with a new map in a
tournament to mix things up.
For a while, at least.
This would also give a new map the chance to be tested by pro players and improved.
I don’t think that Valve has forced Cbble and Overpass to be played in majors just to
confirm their own mapping ability.
I think that new maps are used to shake up the viewing experience as much as anything
else.
Moving Dust2 to its own category is a polite way of Valve shifting it out of the spotlight
whilst acknowledging it as the incontestable behemoth that it is, as a testament to the
map’s success.
It has earned a permanent place in Counter Strike.
And Valve has given it one, away from the rest of the game.
Yes, Dust2, we know how great you are.
You’ll always be there should the game need you again.
But I think that 2017 is the year that Valve tests Counter Strike, to see if it can stand
without the Dust2 crutch that it’s had for longer than many of its players have even
been alive!
Having Cache accepted into the active map pool is Valve accepting that it’s good enough
to be played for more than just an Operation.
Giving Dust2 its own category is the next level: accepting that it’s good enough just
to be accepted as part of CS:GO, without needing to prove itself any more.
And yet, Valve intends to remake it.
But redoing Dust2 is a very different task from the others that they’ve done.
Nuke, Inferno and Train had obvious issues that the remakes resolved.
But Dust2?
What sort of change does this map need?
I don’t expect them to mess with the winning formula.
I don’t see what they have to achieve from doing so!
If they want to test different layouts then they can make a new map, rather than to change
Dust2 into something other than Dust2.
As far as I’m concerned, the main reason for this remake is just to give the oldest
CS:GO map a facelift.
When it is, it will be the first proper CS:GO map to get a total make-over.
You see, to make sense of why different maps were remade at different times you have to
look back at Counter Strike: Source.
Maps such as Dust2, Aztec and Italy were included since the game’s release in 2004.
Let’s call these Level-1 graphics maps.
Because they were made so early-on, they looked very blocky and dated compared with the maps
that Valve added later, such as Train, Inferno and Nuke which were added in 2005.
I’ll call these Level 2 maps.
It was perhaps because of this that these later additions were simply ported across
to Global Offensive at first, with only minor improvements.
Valve must have considered them already acceptable for a game being released in 2012 and only
bothered giving the older, original 2004-release maps such as Dust2 and Aztec complete facelifts
for the new game.
We’ll call these new versions Level 3 maps.
But this meant that Dust2 had leap-frogged the other maps in quality, being level 3 compared
to their level 2 quality.
This meant that they needed to be remade to bring them ahead again!
I consider the newly remade Train, Nuke and Inferno maps to be Level 4 in quality.
Which means that we’re in a rather nice situation where all of the commonly played
defuse maps are up to at least Level-3 quality.
That is, 2012 or newer.
Hostage maps like Office, Assault and Militia are the only ones still at Counter Strike
Source graphics standard.
But it does mean that Dust2 is now the only map that hasn’t been remade since CS:GO’s
release back in 2012.
Which would make it the most likely candidate for a graphical remake, being the only competitive
map below level 4 in graphical quality.
Valve has learned a lot about the game since its 2012 release.
If they do remake Dust2 then I expect it to feature better visibility and more vivid colours,
as has been tradition with the other maps they’ve remade recently.
Obviously I’m not worried that they’ll mess it up, gameplay-wise.
I don’t think that map balance is such a delicate thing.
After all, Dust2 has already been remade for Condition Zero, Source and Global Offensive
and they’ve all been well received.
Valve has learned a lot about CS:GO since 2012 and perhaps the old-fashioned way in
which Dust2 was made back then is limiting how adjustable it is now.
At one point they opened up the skybox around the A side of the map- perhaps they wish to
extend this to other parts as well.
Bombsite B, after all, still remains very closed in comparison.
And correcting this is no small feat with how the map is currently constructed.
There are also many graphical bugs where things will just ‘pop’ into view as you’re
moving around.
This is from how it’s optimised and once again, can’t be fixed easily without major
adjustments to the underlying design of the map.
And I’ll probably be hated for saying it, but I dislike the double doors.
I see them as an inelegant way of introducing bottlenecks and optimisation to the level.
As iconic as these doors are, I’m sure there must be a better way of featuring them in
the level.
I hope to see the movement around bombsite B smoothed off, especially around the hole
in the wall.
I want the weird 1-way flashes at A to be removed.
The hitboxes on these windows fixed and maybe to give this bit of the map more of a gameplay
purpose.
But these are very small criticisms that I don’t feel warrant a remake on their own.
The potential payoff just seems smaller than from working on a new map instead.
As for balance, I think it’s safe to say that Dust2 has always been one of the most
balanced maps.
You get some games where it feels more T-sided, others where it’s CT.
So I was surprised to discover that in recent professional play, it was the least balanced
out of all of the maps, with Nuke being the best.
Talk about role reversal!
Obviously the map’s layout hasn’t changed.
So why was Dust2 so CT-sided in the latest major?
Could it be because the game’s strategies have matured and developed to favour defence
on the map?
Or perhaps just a limited sample size?
It was, after all, the least played map in the major with just 5 matches in the whole
tournament.
There was an excellent article written by SidiPi that talked about this.
Dust2 seemed to be a map that teams didn’t have a strong opinion about, often left in
play via process of elimination and as the deciding map of a best of 3, meaning that
it wasn’t always played even when it was picked.
It was also the least picked from the random map selection system.
I don’t think it’s even fair to criticise Dust2 at this stage.
Nobody can question its dominance within the game.
It will forever be associated with Counter Strike, if not as an active map then as an
old and predictable friend, for comfort gaming whenever everything else becomes too much.
And maybe one day, perhaps when CS:GO faces major competition from another game, Dust2
could be summoned to the active map pool again, as Valve’s secret weapon.
Who knows.