As a result, the games' multiplayer maps have built longstanding reputations within the series, with some becoming significant to the first person shooter genre as a whole with enduring legacies.
While many popular levels are designed by Valve Corporation, some community-created maps are also rotated in and may become long-term additions to the competitive scene.
[2] As of January 2025, the seven Active Duty maps in Counter-Strike 2 are Ancient, Anubis, Dust II, Inferno, Mirage, Nuke and Train.
[8] In November 2022, Valve contacted the creators of the map, Roald van der Scheur, "Jakuza", and "jd_40", and offered to buy out the rights to it, an unusual occurrence.
[13] According to Rock, Paper, Shotgun, Cache has been compared to Inferno and Dust II, as one of the most well designed maps in the Counter-Strike series.
[14] The map was used in a study from Uppsala University for a full analysis on level design in competitive video games.
[16] "Dust II", also known by its filename de_dust2, is a video game map featured in the first-person shooter series Counter-Strike.
Inferno, also known by its filename de_inferno, is a multiplayer map in the Counter-Strike series of first-person shooter video games by Valve Corporation.
[28] Overpass was added into the Active Duty map pool in 2014 in Global Offensive,[1] and this was carried over into the start of Counter-Strike 2.
In April 2024, Overpass was removed from CS2's active duty pool in order to make room for Dust II's return, which led to mixed reactions from players and members of the pro scene.
It is set in a trainyard and train station featuring many ladders, high platforms, long angles, and tight corridors.
[1][34] In January of 2025, Vertigo was removed from the Active Duty map pool (in preparation for the 2025 BLAST Austin Major) and replaced by Train.