Rarely do the maps in CS:GO receive so many changes in a single update.
The big news is that Anubis, a map from the recent Mapcore competition, has been moved
into the competitive pool less than 2 weeks after its initial inclusion in the game. This
map is clearly a fan-favourite, and has had a few bug fixes of its own.
If you had your shader settings set to medium or below, the reflections here would mess
up, with only some of the level being visible. But this has now been fixed.
The patchnotes weren’t specific about where the clipping and boost spots it fixed were,
but I compared numerous areas of the map for clipping and as you can see, many places have
been changed. Steps have been ramped, trees have been cordoned off, and edges have been
smoothed.
The next map I want to cover is Office, which reads like a late April fools joke. Based
on ‘PRO’ feedback apparently, snow has accumulated on the dumpster at the back. This
lets people navigate the whole thing without needing to jump until they reach the window
sill. This should make it easier for attacking CT’s to check for camping terrorists without
being shot as they leap up onto the crates. I hope it won’t remain as it is though because
the extra snow has very lazily been added on top of what was already there. There’s
a visible shadow around it and everything. The beverage machines have been restocked,
meaning they’ll spew their contents when hit. Bit like the ones in Half-Life 1.
Office is now a non-smoking environment, meaning that all of these cigarette-bin things have
been removed to improve navigation across this map.
I also spotted that this table has been removed. And from this comparison you can also see
that the lighting on the props has been done with different settings, making things glow
less and fitting in better with their surroundings. You’ll also see in the kitchen room that
the chairs have been tucked in, and looking at the clipping, it’s all been clipped off,
as has the water fountain behind the drinks machine. I’ve just realised the irony of
having a water dispenser next to a free water machine.
Oh and lastly, the light switches have all been swapped out for higher quality, 3D models.
Though they don’t look like light switches any more. More like motion detectors?
Mirage has had a black block added to beneath this van so you can no longer see the feet
of players stood behind it. As well as this there are some ‘clipping’
changes. I noticed this corner near the van is now at 90 degrees, whereas before it was
smoothed off a little bit. Not sure if that’s an improvement but it’s a change!
And from my in-depth comparisons from elsewhere in the map, the only change I saw was to this
screw-driver’s placement, just here. What am I doing with my life
Inferno has had its HDR toned down a bit. From these images you can see the sky looks
less over-exposed compared with the level. It’s also got a new wallbang here in the
apartment near A. Using this you can spam through to this corner, and even out into
graveyard. But remember: it works both ways, and CTs camped here can also use this to shoot
into the apartment.
Overpass has had a few changes, too. The thing you’re trying to blow up at A has been swapped
out from being a rocket under a tarpaulin, to being a series of generic crates and clean
90 degree angles. This surely fits in with Counter-Strike’s bland crate lore, but it
feels like a bit of a step back if you ask me. In fact, if you really want to know what
I think, I reckon it’s because the green tarpaulin blended in with some of the new
custom character models so this is Valve trying to get them to work by changing the maps,
instead of the characters. Could at least have coloured the tarpaulin a different colour
if that was the case. These skips have had a welcome change. It
looks like a new model, but it’s actually just how the old one SHOULD have looked, were
it lit correctly. Seems like it was casting shadows across itself before. It also didn’t
used to have a clip brush over it, but now it does- which makes jumping on top of it
a lot easier. You could get caught on the lip before, unable to run forwards and over
it. They fixed pixel boost 151 in water, which
appears to be along this wall here, which now has an extended clip brush that sticks
out a bit more from the wall to stop you from running along it in thin-air.
And the last thing to have changed is the lighting. The sun casts a more neutral, less
warm-looking colour. I’d assume this would be to make character models stand out against
it more clearly, but it seems like the indoor parts are now a bit darker.
And last is Chlorine, which, like Overpass, has received changes to its lighting, which
has gotten noticeably brighter (And less purple?), and has also had its angle shifted so that
it’s pointing more down. This will brighten up more of the map. You can see that the sun
can reach into places like the River now, which I think makes it look prettier and will
give you more shadows to line your grenades up to.
I couldn’t find some of the updates mentioned, like the FBI CT models, who remain as the
SAS for now. But I saw that this plywood board, and extra
stone in the wall had been added to bombsite B.
The puddles remain as they were, but no longer reflect the scenery which apparently helps
prevent a smoke visibility exploit that people were using.
This tarpaulin now deflects grenades, thanks to an approximate, square grenade brush.
And a few bomb stuck spots have been taken away, like behind this bench just here…
and on the top of the wall here.
As well as all of these map changes, CS:GO has also had a few more general optimisations.
A few textures have been compressed to reduce memory consumption, and for users on old intel
hardware the launch command -noubershader might help your framerate. But Valve stresses
that this isn’t going to help the majority of users. In fact, it might even lead to more
stuttering, so I think these optimisations will only be felt on ultra low-end hardware,
and isn’t a miracle cure.
So what’s next? Will Mirage drop out of the mappool? Will Office replace it, returning
with new spawn positions and windows everywhere?! Only time will tell.