Counter-Strike: Global Offensive's Inferno Revamped

Dear old Counter-Strike level Inferno has returned to CS: Global Offensive [official site] reworked and prettied-up. Gone is the grunge of early noughties FPSs, the cloudy skies, the illogical architecture, and the lingering sense that maybe CS is set inside the world of Half-Life 2, with Inferno's village now a scenic spot you might potter around, cooing, on your summer hols. Oh, sure, and they've fiddled with a lot of areas to tweak how it plays. After a stretch in beta, the new Inferno is now public in the Reserves Map Group. Even if you're not into CS: GO, do enjoy the comparison screenshots between 2012's Inferno and 2016's - the progress is pleasing.

Valve explain that that they had three goals in revamping Inferno: to improve visibility; to make it easier to move around in groups; and to tune it with player feedback. They go over the main areas changed and explain their reasoning, which you'll want to check out if you'll be playing Inferno.

Even if not, hey, sliding the sliders on comparison screenshots is jolly nice. What a murky time 2012 was. Some of these changes are to improve visibility, some are surely because the devs feel comfortable throwing more detail into levels for 2016's hardware, but they could've remade that grubby rural town. 2016's Inferno seems to have moved elsewhere in the world, to somewhere a lot more - as tourists would say - 'picturesque'.

Do check out the comparisons to new/old Nuke from earlier this year too. That's a nice change too. I like you, 2016's virtuaworlds.