Fans believe that asphalt cracks hint that a beloved map is ready to return to CS2

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Counter-Strike 2 players had a draught of meaningful content for a while now. While the Esports scene is going strong, the casual players don’t have much to go on with the game’s current state. Notably, while the upgraded game has been out for a while – over a year now – the updates have been few and far between. Most of the early fixes revolved around the technical side, but there is plenty of CS:GO content that is yet to return. Fortunately, some signs point that might change soon.

How much can you read from a crack?

Recently, the official Counter-Strike X account changed their banner image. The new one simply shows a stretch of asphalt, cracked and out of repair, with a looking shadow of what appears to be a structure. Though vague, that didn’t stop intrepid and content-starved fans from piecing together a theory. The result? Train is coming back to CS2, at least according to snooping players on Reddit.

CaraX9 first started the thread showcasing the banner change, which inferred that Valve was teasing a new map. It didn’t take much for players to jump to the conclusion that the map in question is Train. As you’d expect, there’s plenty of speculation as well as reasoning as to why that could be the case. JakeJascob pointed out: “No, it’s Train. That one guy is on vacation and previous patch notes talked about rain and thunder noise changes on Train. They added a wet effect to all textures related to Train.” There are even more indications going almost to CSI levels, like this one from Mr_BreadMan: “Imo, it looks like the pavement by T spawn on Train, there’s the reflection of the building outside of the play area.” However, not everyone feels as positive about the potentially returning map, be that Train or Cache (another popular contender). For instance, Impala states: “Incredible, teasing for a map that has been removed and stayed removed for a year in their brand new and better game”.

Even when it’s about maps, it’s about cheats

No discussion about CS2 can go without the mention of the main issue plaguing the team shooter. Namely, the elephant in the room – rampant cheating. “That’s symbolic [of] the cracks in the game’s development.” opined Jahoosafer. They weren’t the only one, and there are many more comments lamenting about the sorry state of the game’s anti-cheat. “How about anti-cheat first?” added Idirtbike, while Lynx20 had a similar comment: “Road to a new anti-cheat???” To round it off, Wafflepiezz would like to see both: “Please we just want some new content + a better anti-cheat.”

No matter which way you slice it, something is coming to CS2. Is it Train, or Cache, or something completely new – we don’t know. If it is a whole new map, we can expect the fan outrage to pile on, especially knowing how popular both of those maps were. And besides them, there are several other maps that are missing from the game’s upgraded version. What is your take – do you think this snippet in the banner image is proof that Train is coming back to CS?

About the Author

Miljan Truc

Miljan has been into gaming since the days of Sega Mega Drive and Amiga. During his gaming career, he has raided at a high level, coached other players, and written about games since 2016.