71 maps. How am I supposed to pick from that?! A quick recap: I made a new gamemode called
de_fenestration where CT’s start near the hostages and have to dive through windows
and off large drops to reach the hostage rescue zone. I asked you to make maps for it, and
there have been 71(!) entries. I was expecting a dozen, maybe 20… so picking maps from
this has been quite a challenge. For this first collection, I’ve chosen to keep it
simple with 4 good looking maps that I believe will play… interestingly.
Who’s to say if they’ll play well? This is unexplored territory for CS:GO maps here.
I think the defenestration gamemode plays well thanks to its fast-paced nature and suicidal
tendencies. Now I look at the entries I’ve chosen, I’m noticing a worrying lack of
windows. It seems it’s the pit that everybody’s focused on, and I love how stupid some of
these hostage rescue zones are when you stop to think about them.
Tossing a hostage into a volcano to save them from their existence seems oddly profound.
Let’s go through the 4 maps I’ve chosen and why.
Fiji keeps the dream of Aztec alive. But with a few unexpected, but potentially awesome
twists. Like having to toss hostages into a volcano. We’ve all wanted to. Love it.
There’s this destructible floor here. And there are colour-coded teleports everywhere
to make this map feel more like something from old-school arena shooters. The lighting
on this map is beautiful and I commend Prabbi’s use of cubemaps to make things look deliciously
slimy and wet. The combat seems focused around a central, open courtyard, and the bots I
played with enjoyed jumping into the pit just as much as I did. I’m excited to see how
this one play with real people.
Summit is one of the most claustrophobic maps I’ve ever played. But I like that- it makes
the combat frantically paced and terrifyingly close-range. Which means we should see an
unusual mixture of weapons like shotguns and SMGs being used. The CTs start at the bottom
of this foundry and must rescue one of two hostages at the top. The most fun of these
is the one who’s balanced precariously on this platform outside, suspended above a deadly
drop and pools of lava. Be careful not to jump to your death needlessly- the spot below
the hostage is actually a bombsite, with the real hostage rescue zone hidden off around
the corner. I don’t think this map will play much like de_fenestration, but it borrows
enough elements and adds enough of its own to ensure it’ll be an interesting one to play.
Scorpio is one of 2 defenestration maps that T1mure has created. It looks more complicated
than it is. As CT you grab a hostage, then head up to the top floor to find a way of
jumping down into the water to save the hostage. The bot support on this map is excellent,
which really helped me to test it. I appreciate details such as the lighting and custom skybox.
And I like the explosive barrels everywhere, which is always fun to catch an enemy out
with. Just be careful when you jump down to rescue the hostage, since you have to land
in quite a specific location shown on the radar.
And last is Pit, which I think could be the de_fenestration gamemode’s dust2: it’s
got one of the simplest layouts imaginable, yet there’s a huge amount of depth to what’s
there. It’s got a wild-west theme and a large pit with considerable depth itself.
Be careful not to accidentally fall down this, or you’ll be falling for the rest of the
round! But you must jump down here to rescue the hostage. For some reason. The terrorists
start close to the pit and must defend 3 main routes leading to the opening. A lot of thought
seems to have gone into the placement and positioning of the cover which makes me believe
this is a solid, well-tested entry where a few smokes will transform that middle courtyard
from a deathzone into a thrilling push to the pit.
So thank you to everybody who submitted a map, I have them all in a spreadsheet and
hope to pick more for future playtesting sessions. But let’s see how this one goes and we’ll
take it from there. IPs to the servers are linked to in the video’s description.
As for the competition deadline: I gave you a week, but don’t care if you submitted
after that or continued working on it later. Without a deadline I find projects tend to
balloon or never get finished, so that week was more to help you get at least SOMETHING
done. If you want to continue working on your maps
then please do, when there are so many entries I have no choice but to prioritise testing
the ones that look the most appealing on the workshop.
That being said, I’ve received enough entries already so won’t be accepting more, I didn’t
expect so much interest in this. Thanks again to everybody who has contributed.