New de dust 2.


Halo's Blood Gulch, Battlefield's Gulf of Oman, and Team Fortress' cp_dustbowl all have one thing in common, they're the most popular maps in first-person shooter history. Yet, for how many millions of gamers have spent countless hours being shot at when playing these particular levels, none has racked up the veteranship of Counter-Strike's de_dust2.


Released in 2001 with Counter-Strike's v1.1 update, de_dust 2 is a phenomenon. It's not only been in every release for the series, but in many cases it's the only map anyone wants to play.


Funny: Check Out This Counter-Strike Noob Soundboard


Not long ago Valve pulled de_dust2 from Counter-Strike: Global Offensive's active map rotation in favor of a revamped de_nuke. Now, it's ready to unveil a new chapter in the map's timeline.


A new blog post shows several screenshots of the upcoming map, which is now playable in the beta tree. The changes are more visual than anything; the layout of both bombsites and middle have been retained. Though, there's clearly a huge change in color palette as well as texture quality, making this by far the most realistic version of the map we've ever seen.


See for yourself:


Bombsite  B



There's no major difference here other than the fact that the car has been mysteriously repaired.


B Tunnels Upper



There's some light breaking into the room now which may be good for your vitamin D levels.


Bombsite A



Where does that door go? I wanna know.


Catwalk



The balcony guardrails are a little smaller now which should result in you mistakenly nading yourself less often.


Top Mid



There's a sign pointing to bombsite A now so you don't get lost while a sniper is raining fire your way.


Low Mid



There are stairs now in case you have a slinky.


T Spawn



This mosaic has been brought to you by Antoni Gaudi.


You can see side-by-side comparisons on the official blog post. Expect the update to hit the live servers in the coming weeks.