I spoke with Mirage’s original maker, BubkeZ, in a recent video. Link in the description.
If you haven’t seen it, I suggest you watch it first, as it will explain a lot about what
I talk about in this video, which is about its story leading up to CS:GO and the present
day. Here’s the rough timeline of the different
map versions. Mirage’s story starts with de_strike, way back in 2004. This was, of
course, BubkeZ’s original version for 1.6, developed for the CPL-eague at the time. It’s
essentially mirage, but with a different terrorist entrance into bombsite B- you can see it here
snaking around and going underground before popping up right next to the bombsite.
The next part of the Mirage story comes in 2007, when it was ported across into Counter-Strike
Source. I downloaded this file, under the original
de_strike name, and this port was apparently done by Ted ‘CACHED’ McIlwain.
This hero later went on to make maps for CS:GO that you might know, like de_lite… and de_season.
Isn’t it a small world. Running about this 2007 version, it’s…
well, it’s de_strike, with the same layout as the original and even featuring CPL logos
on the walls. But it’s had a graphical overhaul to bring it up to Source standard and I believe
has inspired every Source version of the map since. More on this later.
Back to the timeline now, and you can see the next thing to happen was when BubkeZ changed
the T entrance to B, removed the CPL logos and called the result de_mirage, in 2010.
But this was only for 1.6. Source players would have to wait 2 years until they could
play it!
I couldn’t find who the maker of this remake of the remake for Source was, but dAllas__
uploaded it to gamebanana. He didn’t claim to have made it but did say that ‘my friend
maked this map’. This came out at about the start of 2012,
and clearly builds upon Ted’s original Source map- which is evident from these side-by-side
comparisons. It has had some retexturing, the CPL banners are gone, and of course the
terrorist entrance to bombsite B has been changed into the one we all know and love
for Mirage. This map is Mirage. For Source.
Now, finally, we get to CS:GO- which came out later in 2012. Mirage was ported into
CS:GO by Madmax, an impressive 3 days after CS:GO’s release! Again, it was still based
on the same old version that Ted had made way back in 2007, but with yet more retexturing
and nicer lighting. I assume a lot of this was borrowed from CS:GO’s Inferno map, which
came with all kinds of nice props and textures that can be seen in this version.
Also, we see the fence in middle has been replaced with these black bars. Who knows
why this was. Maybe the models used in the CS:S versions were no longer featured in CS:GO.
Or maybe Madmax wanted to return the style to something more similar to the original
1.6 version. This version of Mirage was used until mid
2013, when Valve released their take on the map.
It was teased over on twitter a few months before it was officially included.
And then it was added in June of 2013, complete with a dusty Moroccan theme.
The question I want to ask is: which version is this based upon? Is it the original 1.6
version? Or is it Ted’s remake? Well the layouts of all are very similar,
so you might ask ‘who cares’. But I do! Because I think they borrowed Ted’s remake.
For a start: the terrorist route to bombsite B. In the original 1.6 version you climb up
into this building, then remain indoors until you’re at the site.
But not so with the Source version! There’s an outdoor bit here… which fans of this
map will be familiar with, since CS:GO’s version is practically identical.
Also, you know how at catwalk you can jump up onto this fence here and into the window?
This couldn’t be done in BubkeZ’s original map version. He told me that he doesn’t
like this change. Well GUESS WHAT. This wasn’t changed by Valve… it was done by Ted.
GET HIM. Any way. Because of these things, I think
that Valve based their CS:GO remake of de_mirage on Ted’s 2007 Source version.
Plus, Madmax’s workshop submission is in their favourites.
Since its official inclusion in CS:GO, it has had almost 30 different versions… and
incredibly, none of them are particularly interesting!
But it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t have to be like Overpass, which has had really
large, fun changes since its debut. Mirage’s changes are almost entirely bug fixes and
optimisations. They represent the fashions and trends the game has gone through since
it came out. It got a few updates to patch up spots you
could get the bomb stuck in when we went through THAT BIT OF HISTORY when everybody was obsessed
with throwing the bomb into silly places. The skybox gets opened up quite a bit when
we went through the grenade-lobbing craze. Following the bullet penetration update the
game received in 2014 (Was it really that long ago?), the map got some updates to patch
the bugs that cropped up from this change. So rather than to go through 30 different
versions (Which would be boring), I’ll simply compare the oldest version I could find, with
the newest… and it’s amazing how all these patches and updates add up.
At first glance, it looks identical to the latest version.
BUT THINK AGAIN. For a map that hasn’t changed … a lot has!
Take a look at this door at A. I didn’t mind how it looked before- it was ridiculously
detailed and had a high poly-count, but you can’t deny that the new style and colours
suit the map a lot better. The biggest visual change has got to be to
the towering castle that stretches all the way around from T spawn to bombsite A. This
new material looks less repetitive and the wear, more convincing thanks to BLENDED TEXTURES.
Subscribers to this channel will know that I love this technology. A lot. Perhaps too
much! But soon you’ll see why. It lets the artist smoothly ‘build up’ the amount
of wear on a surface and it convincingly eats away at the material that was there before-
similar to snow on surfaces in Skyrim, or the bricks in the Crysis 2 tech demo.
Also, a big thank you to whoever finally made the tall towers look right. They looked like
half finished renders before, but now feature proper shadows and definition. I think they
got this right several times over the years, before a new update would break them again.
But they’ve had them sussed for a while. Valve, please keep.
A sad farewell to the distant scenery. At both T and CT spawn, you used to be able to
see the desert stretching out into the distance, with dark mountains and swirling clouds on
the horizon. I always liked visual touches like this as they made Mirage feel like a
place, rather than an enclosed kill room of sorts. But I guess not enough people appreciated
details such as these, and they did away with them to improve your framerates by some impossibly
small amount. Also, minor details have been changed. The
areas beyond the playable zone have generally become less detailed, but then some new details
have been added, normally to break up a previously flat bit of skyline.
More roofs have been textured as time has gone on. I think this ties in with the skybox
being opened up to allow for more grenades, but it does also mean that spectators can
view the action from up here without being distracted by invisible objects everywhere.
The plant pots on the map used to harbour a sinister secret. They’d CHANGE COLOUR
when broken, clearly swapping the model for the wrong one. What a great tr-… ILLUSION.
You could say it blue itself early! Now onto gameplay changes, starting with A
site. The main route from CT spawn has been given more cover either side. This can work
both ways- yes, it gives players stood here more cover to guard the site from… but it
also gives people at the site more cover from this entrance, AND makes it easier to block
it off with a single smoke grenade. All things considered, this change makes it harder for
the team hoping to use this entrance to reach bombsite A from.
The cover at bombsite A used to have all kinds of cracks that you could see through. Clearly
unacceptable by today’s standards, these have been sealed up. Black boxes added to
the insides to ensure no peeky holes remain. The lamps around bombsite A have been removed.
It seems a shame to reduce detail by taking things away completely, especially since most
of them weren’t really interfering with visibility unless you went out of your way
to make them so. This one took me by surprise. There’s a
room here at tetris! …But not anymore. It has been bricked up, perhaps to improve framerates,
but maybe also to simplify the background to make players in this area stand out more?
You decide. Also, the boxes at tetris have changed quite
a lot. More have been added, CHANGING what kind of cover you have when stood in this
corner. I think the biggest difference though is that whereas before, you had to jump to
get on and over the tallest crate, they’re now all at this same height, letting players
climb up in the safety of the corner before rushing out as they please.
The entrance to palace has gotten a diagonal wall. This stops players from standing so
close to the corner for cover from the site, but its main purpose is likely to give players
all sorts of grenade options into the site by bouncing them off this corner.
The far wall in palace also sticks out further now, letting players hide in this corner at
the back more easily, taking unsuspecting rushing CTs by surprise from yet another position!
Back in 2016, Team Liquid were rushing bombsite B and Coldzera held them off with just an
AWP. To commemorate this play, Valve added this graffiti to the wall, nicely naming the
update ‘Vandalism’. The terrorist route to B has always been one
of controversy. In Mirage’s early days there were THESE props that you had to run up and
its appearance would cause players to jump near the top. It was a joke for years because
a jump wasn’t needed. As it was clipped, you could simply run all the way up without
jumping and potentially blocking your teammates, ruining a B rush.
…Or at least, that’s what everybody thought. But in this early version… you do need to
jump. Well, this changes things, doesn’t it! We
used to think that people were noobs for jumping, when maybe they were just veterans of the
game who had learned to jump on an early map version when it was needed. It was clipped
up early on, at the start of 2014. Valve must have thought that people would
eventually wean themselves off the bad habit, but clearly they didn’t and Valve ended
up replacing the cursed section with stairs instead.
The other side has also changed, going from a ladder to a stack of boxes. Which I’m
sure BubkeZ, the original map’s maker, is happy about.
Back in the early days, you could glitch into this wall near CT spawn. You’d crouch, then
if you tried standing up and couldn’t, walking and jumping forwards would suck you into the
wall into a pocket you could see out of, but that other players couldn’t see into. As
you’d imagine, this exploit quickly became popular, was shown by every Youtuber in existence
and was quickly patched in early 2015. The scaffolding has also gone, cutting the
time you spend crouched while crawling through this vent, speeding up access to and from
sniper’s nest. The shop at B has had some substantial changes-
I think they’re best shown with before and after shots. There were shelves that acted
as partial cover in this room and those that interfered with firefights were either removed,
or replaced with newer shelves that have a simpler outline. Pretty, spinny fans have
been installed. The room has gotten lighter, MESSIER… and this stack of boxes now sticks
half way through a wall. Compared to a lot of the map’s changes,
these are recent, most having been made in June of 2018.
This window here was opened up a bit earlier. Back in 1.6 and Source it was boarded up,
but sometime in CS:GO’s lifetime, Valve decided to remove one of the flappy bits,
letting players jump through if they position themselves just right.
Also done in 2018 was an upgrade to the cover at the back of B. It looked a bit shabby before.
Some of this was intentional, some of it Source’s fault. The new version looks nicer and has
better defined edges, which makes this cover less frustrating in play.
There was a phantom weapon-sucking bug in these broken walls here. It almost became
a prank to play on people. But they’ve been removed, and with it all fun has been sucked
from the map. Or at least this bit of it. Mid sees 2 changes worth mentioning. At the
top of middle, an extra crate has been added- I assume this was to make the gap between
T entrance and the central cover smaller to make it easier to land a smoke grenade that
could obscure vision between these two points. Like so.
And the window at the bottom has gotten larger, lost the central support, these comparisons
both show paint on the wall behind it but I’m absolutely sure that at some stage this
wasn’t here and was added to make snipers stand out more. And that stupid little tile
roof has been taken away. It wasn’t needed to boost into window, and was so small it
was just a bit fiddly. A narrow ledge now serves a similar purpose whilst not getting
in the way of movement as much. This metal vent cover has been thinned out.
You had no problem peering through it from this position before, but from the other side
you were concealed rather nicely. The new vent doesn’t provide any where near as much
visual protection. The connector from mid to B has received 2
significant changes. I’m sure that BubkeZ will also be happy to see his favourite crate
being added back again, letting players from this spot snipe into palace from the safety
of connector. And the other difference being to the wall
next to the stairs. It used to be thick, solid brick… but got replaced with a wooden bit
so you could wallbang sneaky enemies hidden at the foot of stairs. Or, indeed, spray back
the other way into connector. And what about the apartments themselves?!
They’ve had all kinds of changes! CTs hidden in this corner will have more space now. The
windows have been widened to be more like they were in Source and 1.6. There used to
be a BED in this corner, which was replaced by a smaller, more out of the way chair instead.
And a cabinet here has been removed entirely, which I guess opens it up for rushes and simplifies
the outline of the ‘wall’. Also, at some point this infamous spammable
wall into apartments was made larger and more bangable. At one early point, (at least with
current penetration models), even CT rifles couldn’t penetrate it, while now, even pistols
can! Also, the window models either side didn’t
even used to match up! It’s evident that this part of the map was an after-thought
when first ported into CS:GO, and the importance of wall-banging in this area came later.
On the T side of apartments, this beautiful set of drapey fabric things has been taken
out to give Terrorists more options to pre-grenade bombsite B.
And that’s it! This video has by no means been an exhaustive
list of changes, but I hope it’s been interesting. Who knows what the future holds for this map?
Maybe -some day- they’ll even patch up this hole in the ceiling here.