A leak from the latest Counter-Strike 2 update has revealed a massive rework to Inferno, one of the game's most popular maps. Counter-Strike 2 features plenty of huge changes from CS:GO, but a rework of Inferno is a surprise to most.
The reveal of Counter-Strike 2 earlier this year was a massive surprise. CS:GO's popularity was creeping up after a few years of stagnation, and shaking the formula up in any way risked disrupting that. It did anything but. CS:GO broke its own Steam player record upon Counter-Strike 2's reveal, and proceeded to repeat the feat multiple times in the months after. The Counter-Strike franchise has always been a staple of the FPS genre, but at the moment it seems to have entered a new stratosphere of popularity among casual and hardcore gamers. Hopefully, the release of Counter-Strike 2 doesn't disappoint, and the numbers continue to grow each day.
The post in question was posted by Reddit iMarbot and can be viewed here, and it includes screenshots of Counter-Strike 2's version of Inferno. The visual style of the map has received a massive overhaul, but the biggest change comes on the A-site, which is typically seen as one of the hardest to retake in the game. Players can no longer hide behind the graveyard stairs on the A-site, giving players entering the bombsite one less place to check. It's an enormous change that will affect how the map is played, from the lowest levels all the way up to competitive play. As well as this, the area formerly known as "construction" by players has now become "church," with Valve using it to show off Counter-Strike 2's fancy new lighting engine.
These screenshots appear to have been data-mined from the latest Counter-Strike 2 update, which removed Mirage from the Closed Test map pool and instead added Nuke and Office. At the moment, Valve is slowly releasing maps to players one by one, so it can iron out any major bugs before the game releases in full later this Summer. While the gameplay changes to the map have been well-received, not everyone is a huge fan of the color. In the Reddit thread, many refer to the map's desaturation, especially given that Inferno is one of the most colorful maps in CS:GO. Everything is still in flux at the moment, so Valve could still make bolder color decisions in the final version of Inferno.
Despite consistent updates to the Closed Test, Valve remains coy about when the full game will actually drop. It was given a tentative "Summer 2023" date when it was first revealed, so in theory, it could drop any day now. CS:GO skin prices have gone wild after Counter-Strike 2's reveal, and at this point, it's hard to imagine anything calming it down given the incredible hype for the game.
Counter-Strike 2 launches Summer 2023 on PC.
Source: Reddit