Counter Strike: Global Offensive is among the most popular esports in the world today, and with respect to first-person shooters, it’s the preeminent competitive stage available for elite gamers in 2023. It is for this reason that successful players and teams consider victory in CS: GO’s Majors tournaments as the ultimate accolade in esports. It also highlights why the game’s events are among the most popular choices for use with free bet offers such as those provided by comparison platform OddsChecker among fans.
What is at the heart of CS: GO’s success, though? The Counter-Strike series has a long pedigree in the esports world, emerging as it did as a tactical competitive mod of Valve’s FPS classic, Half-Life, in the year 2000. Many credit it with being the true ancestor to all modern military and tactical FPS’, and the first to introduce ‘twitch-based’ realistic gunplay and physics.
Another reason behind CS: GO’s enduring popularity is its tried-and-tested game modes and finely balanced maps. But what CS: GO’s best maps, as arrived at by critical and competitive consensus? This can be difficult to say, especially since the game maintains a rotating selection of only 7 maps at any one time out of a historic pool of over 75.
However, the two listed below are generally considered fan favorites par excellence. Let’s unpick why this might be the case.
Mirage
Well-loved by the esports elite, Mirage is one of the few CS: GO maps that offer a level and largely open playing field to compete in. A series of interlocking circuits make movement around this level intuitive and fast-paced, with no single decisive choke point.
This results in a map highly responsive to team tactics and positioning. Originally a community map named de_cpl_strike, Valve remade it as an officially supported level for CS: GO in 2013.
Inferno
Inferno is a classic map that has been featured in every version of Counter-Strike since version CS 1.1. One of the most iconic features of Inferno is a corridor positioned on the middle periphery of the map that runs in a 45-degree angle to much of the existing city landscape.
Contesting this corridor, known in the community as the ‘banana’, lies at the heart of the combat on this map.
An extremely balanced map, Inferno does not confer an intrinsic advantage on either the attacking or defending sides in the defusal game mode, making it a well-loved competitive venue.