A remake for the most iconic map in Counter-Strike is on its way, and it may be coming a lot quicker than you think.
Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev of Natus Vincere said his team tested the beta of the upcoming Dust II release in a YouTube video of the team’s bootcamp. When the new version of Dust II is added to the game, it’ll be put into the Active Duty lineup for competition right away, according to Na’Vi’s in-game leader Danylo “Zeus” Teslenko. The CIS-region team apparently received the beta version directly from Valve.
This is another confirmation that the Dust II revamp is coming, and now the community hype for it is bound to skyrocket. The very first confirmation came from a Gamerevolution interview, which discussed the iconic map with the creators of CS:GO. “The goal is to update both the gameplay and visuals of the map,” one developer said. Overall, Valve is hoping to fix the inherent problems within the map’s structure.
Related: Inferno replaces Dust2 in CS:GO’s active map pool
Dust II will be the first map to be updated visually since the release of Inferno’s remake, which happened in October last year. When Inferno returned to the active duty lineup, Dust II was also removed from that same lineup to keep the competitive map pool number at seven. The map pool has consisted of Cache, Cobblestone, Inferno, Nuke, Mirage, Overpass, and Train ever since.
It’s also good to see that Valve has been communicating major game changes with professional players behind the scenes. That way teams won’t be completely stunned when one map is added and another map is subsequently removed, essentially changing the playing field for teams with small map pools.
And now the waiting game begins.
