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In order to make up for the rather insubstantial winter event for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive last year, Valve have recently announced the aptly named "Winter Offensive Update", which is now available within the game client. An announcement page over on the CS:GO blog revealed the contents of the update ahead of it's release earlier today, which includes two new maps, a variety of community-created items, and gift packages.
The first map, known as Cobblestone, was previously referred to as "Cobble" or "cbble" in the older Counter-Strike games and has received a full visual overhaul alongside a number of important layout changes including additional flanking routes and an improved sense of scale. Overpass, on the other hand, is an entirely new map which features "fast-paced gameplay in a European setting". As Valve expressed in a previous blog post, the CS:GO team is eager to ensure both Cobblestone and Overpass are balanced before placing them into the game's official map roster. As such, both maps will only be available on official Valve servers within the "Operation Bravo" matchmaking pool for a limited period of time in order to receive feedback from a smaller group of testers before releasing them into the wider game.
The update has also introduced a number of new items to the game, including the "Gift Packages" and "Pallet of Presents", both of which function similarly to Team Fortress 2's "Secret Saxton" and "Pile o' Gifts" items by providing random individuals on the user's server with items free of charge. New for CS:GO, however, is the "Audience Participation" item, which, when used, provides free weapons to 25 random viewers who are currently spectating the game.
A pair of new cases have also been introduced, both of which feature a wide variety of different alternate weapon finishes. The first, known as the "Winter Offensive Case", stands as the first-ever community-made case, featuring a variety of the most popular weapon finishes submitted to the Steam Workshop over the past few months. The second case, known as the "eSports Winter Case", expands Valve's "crowd-funding initiative" by distributing a percentage of the profits to help fund the prize pools for upcoming CS:GO tournaments and competitive events, something which proved extremely successful for the Dreamhack Winter 2013 event earlier this month.
For more information regarding this year's Winter Offensive update for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, be sure to head on over to the CS:GO blog to check out the announcement page and the accompanying blog post.
The first map, known as Cobblestone, was previously referred to as "Cobble" or "cbble" in the older Counter-Strike games and has received a full visual overhaul alongside a number of important layout changes including additional flanking routes and an improved sense of scale. Overpass, on the other hand, is an entirely new map which features "fast-paced gameplay in a European setting". As Valve expressed in a previous blog post, the CS:GO team is eager to ensure both Cobblestone and Overpass are balanced before placing them into the game's official map roster. As such, both maps will only be available on official Valve servers within the "Operation Bravo" matchmaking pool for a limited period of time in order to receive feedback from a smaller group of testers before releasing them into the wider game.
The recently overhauled "Cobblestone" alongside the brand new "Overpass" map.
The update has also introduced a number of new items to the game, including the "Gift Packages" and "Pallet of Presents", both of which function similarly to Team Fortress 2's "Secret Saxton" and "Pile o' Gifts" items by providing random individuals on the user's server with items free of charge. New for CS:GO, however, is the "Audience Participation" item, which, when used, provides free weapons to 25 random viewers who are currently spectating the game.
A pair of new cases have also been introduced, both of which feature a wide variety of different alternate weapon finishes. The first, known as the "Winter Offensive Case", stands as the first-ever community-made case, featuring a variety of the most popular weapon finishes submitted to the Steam Workshop over the past few months. The second case, known as the "eSports Winter Case", expands Valve's "crowd-funding initiative" by distributing a percentage of the profits to help fund the prize pools for upcoming CS:GO tournaments and competitive events, something which proved extremely successful for the Dreamhack Winter 2013 event earlier this month.
For more information regarding this year's Winter Offensive update for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, be sure to head on over to the CS:GO blog to check out the announcement page and the accompanying blog post.
