In the update last week, Canals also received some changes.
Although not as extensive as Mirage’s, the layout has changed and I suspect Valve are
preparing for this map to become something special sometime in the future.
By far the biggest change it’s received is to the Terrorist entrance to B. Here’s
a side-by-side comparison, before and after.
The entrance and stairs have switched directions, and instead of just one corridor leading to
the bombsite there’s now 2, forming a circular passage that you could forever run around,
Benny Hill style.
This will make it harder for CT’s to defend against, since previously they only had to
defend against this one entrance, which was easy to Molotov or to set up crossfires against.
But now there are 2, together with 2 approaches that are now separated by some degree of distance
and cover.
Since this new path is more direct, this approach to reach the site is now almost 2 seconds
shorter.
Also, you can shoot and throw grenades through the metal tops of the doors, opening up grenading
opportunities.
But you know what this update does, don’t you: it breaks the architecture even more.
At this point, Valve should just give up and remove all doors and windows in this building
that aren’t being used for gameplay.
Take this one right here.
They may be riddled with locks, but they barely fit the frame and there are 3 of them!
All leading to a room that’s little more than a lonely corridor.
And worse still, check out this secret room here!
There are no doors anywhere that lead to it, so unless this is a hollow buttress that neighbours
can shuffle through, I’m assuming the only entrance is this door down here, which immediately
leads to the right and is either a steep staircase or ladder leading to the tiny corner room.
And then, to make sense of the windows here, perhaps it’s a long thin room with a stupid,
arched floor.
What kind of monster would live in such a place?
An artist who’s forever sketching the same picture?
Or perhaps recluse who peers out of these windows, possibly to leer at pretty women
as their gondolas float by?
Or maybe a Youtuber?!
Or maybe all 3, at the same time!
Let’s move on.
The scaffolding at A has been cleaned up for better visibility- this means removing the
bin and by changing the positions of the big lightly coloured boards.
This scaffolding now nicely combines the graphical quality of CS:GO, with the simple, boxy design
of 1.6.
And lastly, they have stopped players from standing on top of the doorframe at CT stairs
to B. Before you could do THIS…
…And now you… can still do it.
Valve, please fix?
I guess they must mean this one here, which was ridiculously easy to do before.
And I can confirm that it’s now been fixed.
I’m disappointed in myself for not finding this one sooner!
But yeah, this one still exists.
Exploit it to your heart’s content!
And then there are numerous smaller bug fixes as well.
I did some side-by-sides but only found minor lighting tweaks, nothing to write home about,
so let’s conclude this video.
I guess that most of you are interested in the Mirage changes.
But I’m personally more interested in Canals!
I love how Valve has been quietly working away on this map, refining it and priming
it for competitive play.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see it forced into future majors, similar to how Overpass
was back in 2014.
Yes, it was that long ago now.
Now a firm favourite, Overpass wasn’t always that way.
A lot of what made it a success of that was the string of updates it received, no doubt
based around analytical data from the countless official matches played on it.
But also, let’s not forget how it was forced on all of us for long enough.
This alone gave Overpass an ENORMOUS advantage over any third-party map, even over those
featured in the operations.
I fear that we gamers grow increasingly nostalgic and set in our ways with time.
When it comes to a series as well established as Counter Strike, we may have become so stubborn
that the ONLY way to get us to accept new content is to force it upon us like Canals
is.
Or probably soon will be.
I’m absolutely sure that Canals will earn its place within the competitive mappool by
becoming a great map.
With the information Valve has, and the updates this map is receiving, it’s difficult to
imagine it NOT becoming good!
But let’s bear in mind how unlikely it is for any new content to be accepted by the
community without having such an advantage.
Check out my other videos covering this update, one about Mirage and the other about changes
to the weapon balance.
And here’s another video about Canals, because it seems somewhat relevant to this video.