The 11th Operation, Riptide, has ended.
The clue was in the name all along.
I’m disappointed we didn’t get any high-effort coop missions this time, as it was always
fun to explore those maps and to see if Valve had snuck in any cool easter-eggs, teasing
to the future.
But the operation’s done, and what this means for you is that you have just over a
month to claim all your operation rewards.
This video will cover the maps that were removed, and the new ones that have been added.
We actually get more new maps than we lose.
We say goodbye to Basalt, which was a beautiful cliff-based map situated in Iceland, but in
its place we get Iris- which was made by Bubkez, the creator of Mirage.
And he made Iris in a similar way.
He created the whole map from scratch, and only began playtesting it after this was done.
Oliver was responsible for decorating it, and I notice it’s become a lot sunnier than
it was 3 years ago when I last covered it!
Just like Mirage, it’s got a spot that you can see both bombsites from.
It will be interesting to see how this map plays and whether it has any of Mirage’s
magic.
Insertion 2, the ambitious, open hostage map where you got to choose your spawn points…
has gone.
And we’ve got a more conventional hostage map in its place, called Climb.
Though these walls are all just for show, and you won’t get stuck engaging in wildly
inaccurate firefights half way up them or anything like that.
Interestingly for a hostage map, this one is WIDE.
There are some hostage maps where it feels as though the CTs are being forced down the
same few corridors, but with this they can approach the hostages from so many different
directions, it will be very interesting to see how terrorists attempt to defend against
all of these routes.
And once the hostage is taken, the quickest ways back will be to leap down some one-way
drops.
Not much clim,bing at all, really.
As you might have guessed, it’s situated in and around a climbing hangar, based in
Brazil.
Let’s check out its story- a recent price increase has upset the terrorists who have
decided to take desperate measures.
Rather aptly, the story ends with a cliffhanger, due to the Steam workshop’s annoying character
cut-off if you’re not paying attention to it as you update the map.
I suppose it’ll be on you to decide the end of this story.
The makers of this map include RZL, who worked on Basalt, Coachi, and Squidski who also worked
on Vineyard.
Which also made it into this update!
Gone is the dangerzone map of County, which has been swapped out for 2 new ones instead!
The first is Vineyard, situated in Italy which…
I can quite confidently say is the more conventional of the two maps.
It’s situated on a pretty island, basking in a thick golden haze, and I’d say feels
a bit more open than the other ones- I can see quite a number of spots where you have
to run through a place with no cover, or to rely on knee-high scenery to hide you from
enemies.
The second dangerzone map has LAVA!
Dz_ember is situated on a volcanic Portuguese island which, according to the workshop page,
‘has seen better days’.
It’s got a proper ominous looking skybox to it, too.
This demonic hellscape has lava which burns you to walk in, exploding electrical equipment,
and steamy jump pads that I found extremely difficult to use if you enter them without
any momentum.
With good timing though, they could be used to aid your jumppad boosts, and I’m sure
the insanely talented community will find all sorts of incredible uses for these.
Beneath this map is an intricate web of lava caves.
All in all, I love how different this map feels.
The lava inflicts 4 damage per time, and the steam vents, 1, which I suppose gives them
an interesting gameplay mechanic where there may be times where it’s worth taking a bit
of damage to utilise these kinds of risky shortcuts.
Bear in mind it’s only the liquid bits of lava that will hurt you.
Remain on the bumpy surrounding regions and you won’t take damage.
And last are the new wingman maps.
Goodbye to Ravine and Extraction, hello to Crete and Hive.
Crete is a lovely little map with bright colours and pleasing corners and curves.
But with one devious twist!
‘Bomb has been planted’ These two windows overlook the bombsite from
afar, meaning that once the bomb is planted, if CT’s don’t have a smoke then it will
be easy for terrorists to hang back and to cover it from behind these windows.
Hive lives up to its name by having the most elaborate bombplant shape ever seen!
And unless I’m mistaken, is using the same parallax grass technique that Basalt used.
I also have to praise this elaborate shadow pattern on the floor just here, which looks
better than it has any right to in Source.
And in case you were wondering what was going on behind these doors, it’s this.
So yeah, I’m a fan of this map.
I’m half expecting Adam Jensen to drop out of ones of these vents any second.
So yeah, that’s it.