Winter landscapes are not often seen on maps for CS:GO, and there are technical reasons for this. First of all, displaying snow can put a more significant load on the graphics card, and saving computing resources was especially relevant in the early years of the game. In addition, player figures will look different on white backgrounds than on summer maps, and this will also affect gameplay. However, a few winter maps in CS:GO still exist, even if not all of them are available in competitive matchmaking.
Hostage maps
The most famous winter map is Office. It is still popular among players despite being over twenty years old: it was first added in the beta version of Counter-Strike. Most of the action takes place in office buildings where players have to free hostages, but you can also see a small fragment of a snow-covered city. Many consider this map to be unbalanced, as the large number of narrow corridors gives an advantage to terrorists. Nevertheless, people do not stop playing it.
Another popular hostage map is – Militia. The action on it is set in a mountain village. Interestingly, «winter» this map did not immediately become. Already after the map was removed from the competitive mode, with one of the patches the summer setting was changed to a snowy landscape, Christmas lights and other decorative elements appeared. Right now it is only available in «Normal» mode.
Winter maps as part of operations
It's also worth mentioning a couple other winter maps that were only available to players for a limited time. For example, as part of the operation «Bloodhound» the location «Rails»appeared in the game, but after the end of the event it was removed and now you can't play it on the official servers. The same fate befell the map Royal from Operation «Wildflame». This is probably due to the fact that both of them, for various reasons, did not enjoy much love from players, and the developers decided not to spend resources on their further support and development.
Winter maps from the workshop
Download versions of maps that are now unavailable in the game from the Workshop Steam. Those who miss the official locations can also find there a lot of other maps with winter scenery. One of the most elaborate – maps Subzero from FMPONE. In October 2018, this card even appeared in matchmaking, but it didn't stay there for long and was eventually removed from the game. We can only regret that the developer stopped developing it and switched to other projects.
Fans of the Danger Zone mode may like the Frostbite map, created by the joint efforts of several community members. Open snowy spaces, on which it is difficult to hide from enemies, give the game an additional tension.
What are your favorite winter maps for CS:GO?